


Home

by A_Candle_For_Sherlock



Series: The Way They Were [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Abandonment, Case Fic, Child Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Harry's pretty bamf, John's backstory, M/M, Mutual Pining, Mycroft Being Mycroft, Partner Abuse, Season/Series 04, Secret Intelligence Service | MI6, Slow Burn, and yet it takes them so long to get it together, parental loss, really brief Viclock, spy tech, these two idiots love each other so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-09 17:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 21
Words: 33,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7810618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Candle_For_Sherlock/pseuds/A_Candle_For_Sherlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's an absurd difference between the way Sherlock holds him and the way he feels safe in his hands and everything he's ever known before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He lies back against the seat of the black car Mycroft's people sent them and closes his eyes, wishes everything away. Wishes himself in his chair with a cup of hot tea and the telly on and nothing worse on his mind than what toxic mess Sherlock had going in the experimental part of their kitchen arrangements. Wishes the last several years had never happened. Wishes he’d never heard her name. He can hear Sherlock's voice outside, muffled through the closed door of the car, exchanged last bits of information with the agents and officers, rapid fire. On point, alert, after all of that. He's bloody impossible.  
  
The door opens, the cool air from outside rushing in, and Sherlock's weight settles on the seat. The sharp jolt of the door closing makes John jump, in spite of himself, and he clenches and releases his hand, stretches it out on the soft leather between them. "Home," Sherlock says to the agent in the driver’s seat. The car slides into motion, the vibration of wheels on pavement traveling through the floor into John's feet. He'd buckle up but he can't find the motivation.  
  
The haze in his mind clears a little when the car stops, and Sherlock's door swings open and lets in a blast of frigid wind with the smell of wet pavement and exhaust. He shivers, opens his eyes, blinks against the light of reality. Still can't seem to move.  
  
His door is pulled open. Sherlock's hand slides slowly around his elbow, tugs a little. "John."  
  
John shoves himself up, out of the car. Takes the few steps up to the door with Sherlock just behind. Pulls it open, gets himself into the dry indoor warmth of the entryway, full of the earthy smell of Mrs. Hudson's late night soother. Braces himself with one hand on the wall and waits while Sherlock pulls the door closed behind them.  
  
The stairs creak steadily under their feet as they go up.  
  
He pulls off his coat and scarf as they get inside. He should hang them up. He hangs things up. Sherlock's the one who leaves them. He looks at them in his hand and can't remember the point of hanging things and drops them. Walks over to his chair and sits, aware without looking of Sherlock hesitating in the doorway, taking in the scarf and coat he just dropped in a heap on the floor for no reason. Taking in John.  
  
Being home is better. And it's worse. It feels like everything is normal, and that is terrifying, because everything is wrong and his child wasn’t his and his wife never existed at all, not the way he knew her, and he could spend the rest of his life trying to tease out every little thing she said, every look she gave him, every word, trying and trying and trying to understand which of them were real, were her. Which were just a piece of her disguise. He knows, God, how he knows, how easy it is to become someone else. He's seen Sherlock do it a dozen times. But it was different--completely--unspeakably, because Sherlock was still himself underneath. When the moment passed, the disguise would drop off of him and there he'd be, as sharp-edged and certain as ever. As bright and as magnificent. But Mary hadn't been the reality. Mary had been the disguise, and when it dropped off, she was gone.  
  
And then there's a careful hand on his neck, and a voice saying steadily, "Here, John, try this," and Sherlock's holding out a steaming cup of tea.  
  
He hears the sound he makes, feels the awful tears starting. Feels Sherlock's hand tighten on his neck, lift a little, then come back to rest securely, holding him in the reality of the room, and Sherlock stands silent behind him, just there. Just with him. He wouldn't have chosen this, would have rather wept alone in his bed that night, unseen. But now he can't think beyond the warm weight of Sherlock's hand and the ache inside of him, the certainty that the life he’d tried to build is lost, gone for good, and he cries and cries and cries.  
  
It's not until he feels something fall into his hair, a light wet drop, and another, that he comes back into the room with a rush, turns in his chair to look up. Sherlock's eyes close under his gaze, and more tears fall as Sherlock's hand lifts to shield his feelings from John's look. "Sorry," he murmurs. John sees his lips shake, press together.  
  
"God," John breathes, and stands. He has no idea what to do. "I--I'm--are you all right?" Ridiculous question.  
  
"John," is the only answer he gets, in a whisper, and then Sherlock is turning away, his hand still over his eyes, turning toward the hall and his room in a rush. John watches him go.  
  
Sits down again, and breathes, and breathes. Picks up the cup of tea and drinks it. It's a little cool. Other than that, it's just how he likes it.  
  
He sits and stares at the teacup for what is possibly an unreasonable amount of time. Then he stands. Goes into the kitchen, runs some warm water into the sink. Washes the cup. Rubs it dry on the ratty dishtowel he'd left draped over the back of the chair when the news had come from MI6 that they were in a standoff, that she'd been flushed from a taxi on the way to Heathrow. They called in case she could be talked to, just in case she might respond to John, but of course she'd barely given him a glance when he and Sherlock had shown up at a run and been stopped two doors down from the place where she crouched, expressionless, holding a gun on them all. She'd taken her stand in someone's back garden. She took out half a dozen agents in the span of seconds before they ended it.

It took them forever to let him close enough to really see her; they had to finish photographing the body where it lay in the too-long grass, damp from the rain; searching her for clues, weapons, communications, anything. Finally they'd waved them over. Sherlock's hand stayed firmly on his back as they walked, but he stopped several feet away and waited while John looked. She was in her red coat. She had dark makeup smudged around her eyes, and no ring. It had been his mum's ring. He didn't ask if anyone had found it, or where she had been. He saw Mary in her, like a memory, and then he turned away.  
  
He puts the teacup away in the cupboard and goes into the hall, stands outside Sherlock's door, listening. If Sherlock says, "Go away"--or if there's any chance he's sleeping--but there's silence except for quick, soft breaths, too quick to be unconscious, and footsteps that pause just on the other side of the door.  
  
"Can I come in?" he asks, as calmly as he can.  
  
The door opens immediately. Sherlock’s face is stained with tears. He says, voice firm, "I know you loved her. I am so sorry. I thought, I really thought we could get her back, convince her--"  
  
"God, no!" John explodes, and Sherlock flinches backwards at the strength of it. "No, Sherlock, that's over. She's gone. She never was here--she wasn’t real. But we're here, we're here now, I just want this, I just..." His voice is disappearing into a choked-off whisper, but he sees the moment Sherlock believes him in the way he stands up straight, lips parting, his whole self opening wide. When John goes to him, he pulls him in, wraps him round in a hold so sure that John almost laughs, after everything. Safe. How long has it been since he felt safe?  
  
Sherlock sighs suddenly, deeply, into John's hair, and seconds later a kiss is pressed quietly into the top of his head.  
  
"Was that right?" he asks, low, and John nods wordlessly. He's trembling, a little, and things have been lost, but more remains. So much more remains.

He's home.


	2. Chapter 2

John is five, and grabbing hands worry him. His mum's, specifically. Her hands can be good, helping him when he's hurt or rubbing his hair before bed, patting his back as he heads out the door for the bus. But he doesn't get a choice--if he doesn't want to be touched, her hands insist. A hug becomes a hold he can't get out of. She'll complain, "Come on, baby, let Mummy have you, I just want to love you!" and he'll go still, because her hands can hurt, too, slap and bruise and pinch the soft parts of his arms. Sometimes he knows what he's done wrong, sometimes not. John knows he can't trust her hands.  
  
Her hands grab and own and hurt and love Dad, too. Sometimes he hears her screaming at him, "No! Come back here! Hold me--hold me!" She's slapped Dad, and punched him, right in front of John and Harry. Dad stands still and never cries. So John learns not to cry, learns be quiet and wait until she's done.  
  
Dad doesn't touch him much, but when he's working, or watching a game, he likes for John to come and stand nearby, ask questions if he wants to. Dad is good at explaining. He'll tell him how a battery works, why the umpires throw flags on the field. If he doesn't know, he'll say, "Let's look it up." And they'll go and look together in the fat dictionary or the big old red encyclopedia set Dad keeps in the sitting room on the bookshelves, under the radio that plays the rock and roll music he listens to while he mends things. Dad's hands are amazing. He can fix anything that's broken, paint banged-up furniture brand new, cut snowflakes out of folded-up notebook paper, cutting shapes until it's lacy with holes. When he unfolds them it's beautiful, like magic. Dad doesn't try to hug him, or hold him, but his hand will settle on the back of John's neck sometimes and squeeze, pull him a little closer. And John feels safe.  
  
He gets older, and they scream more. Harry buries her head under her pillow while he sits beside her, listening, waiting for something. He wants it to be okay, and he wants them to like each other, and he kind of wants them to hate each other, really, properly, so that they'll just split up and this will end.

He walks into the garage and finds his dad leaning on the workbench, crying.  
  
"Dammit!" he says, when he sees John.  
  
"That's a bad word," John whispers, because his dad is crying and it's wrong, he doesn't cry, Dad doesn't cry. "You're not supposed to say that."  
  
"Sorry," his dad whispers, too, and turns his head, blinks. "Sorry, baby, I can't. I can't do this. I'm sorry."  
  
Six days later John comes home from school and sees Mum in a heap on the sofa. The sitting room is full of the awful smell of her beer. His dad's room is left just a little open and that's wrong, it's wrong; she's never this drunk this early and he doesn't leave the door open. When John pushes it open just a little more he sees the empty closet, the blank tops of the dresser and the bedside table and whatever felt safe and right in the world is gone.  
  
Harry tries to get him out of the room and into the kitchen for a sandwich but he ignores her hand on his back, her words, until she leaves. His mum never comes at all. He sits on the bed with his head buried in his knees and it's been hours but it still smells like Dad in the room. "Dammit," John whispers. "Dammit, dammit, dammit."  
  
He falls asleep in his school clothes on top of Dad's bed.

John is twelve and he can't look his mum in the eye but he still won't turn away when she kisses him. Harry snarls at Mum over and over to leave her alone.

He's fourteen, and stepping carefully between Harry and Mum, both drunk out of their minds and shouting, unable to forgive each other for being what they are, and if he takes a slap or two from Mum she didn't mean it; he's the good kid, the one who gets Mum to bed before he takes Harry upstairs and listens to her chanting, "I hate her, I hate her," until she escapes out the window, down the drainpipe. He steps between her and the kids at school, too, and teaches her to flip the bird at the girls who shout "lesbian" like it's an insult, and uses his fists when he has to, until he gets his first girlfriend and people forget he's supposed to be a nancy.

John's sixteen and he keeps his hands to himself. The boys punch each other on the shoulder, clap a hand to a back, fist-bump and wrestle in the halls. Some kid named Dan tackled him once as they walked to their next class, just a half-hearted grab, kidding around. Dan was flat on his back on the floor before he knew what had happened and John was crouching over him, pinning him down. "Sorry," he breathed, "sorry, mate, you surprised me," but all the guys were looking at him with something like respect and pretty soon he's asked onto the rugby team. He's a hellion on the pitch. The girls like to go with him because he never gets grabby at the end of a date. And he's a brilliant kisser.

He's eighteen, standing in the kitchen shaking quietly, holding his results letter carefully in both hands while Harry runs circles around the room, bumping into chairs, screaming, "He did it! He did it!" His AS levels had scored all right, but for the full A-levels to come back with perfect marks...he'd studied his arse off and still hadn't really taken in that he could do it, he could be in King's College in a year and on his way to everything he wants. Hard work, good work that takes focus and patience and calm in a crisis--God knows he's good at that. Work that would mean he and his family, if he had one, would actually have enough to live well on and not just get by.

John is twenty and pre-clinical work at King's is taking everything's he's got, and he's living on cheese sandwiches and hope. It's the strangest thing, having everyone take him for who he is; not poor Kate Watson's boy, not the lesbian's brother, not the team captain, just John. People like him. He's funny and sharp and a fantastic wingman. He studies hard, but he pulls the maddest pranks and feels something like freedom.

He's twenty-three, cautiously asking Mum if she's ever heard anything from Dad. Any idea where he'd went. He can't believe he's never asked before. Somehow, Dad leaving had seemed so final. Dad's gone. Nothing more to say. And she sighs, "I've no idea, John," and he blinks back tears and says, "Right."

He's twenty-five and hates to go home. The house is falling apart, Mum's daytime telly constantly shouting in the sitting room. Harry's gone, off in Bristol with the sweet fiancee Mum refuses to meet, working a desk job and using unforgivable language on John when he suggests a joint trip to Mum's for Christmas. He goes less and less, tries to make it up with phone calls. Mum cries, and her voice is never clear now, and he can never take more than twenty minutes of it before he makes an excuse and rings off.

John is twenty-seven when Mum crashes her car into a wall at two in the afternoon and goes through the windshield. Harry stays buried in Clara's arms through the service. John finds random things terrifyingly funny--the respectable blue pantsuit they put her body in, the glamor shot of Mum at twenty on display beside the casket. The off-key hymns.

John is twenty-seven, going through Mum's things, when he finds the letters from Dad, a dozen in a few years, the first years after he left, asking for news of him and Harry. Asking for a chance to stop by. There are two or three later ones, but nothing from 2001 on. No way to tell if she ever wrote back.

John is twenty-seven, waiting in the bus stop on the way home from his rotation at the hospital, staring at a recruitment ad. "Don't join the army. Don't stand on your own two feet. Don't make a difference. Don't find out what you're capable of." He rolls his eyes a little, but the words pull at something in the back of his mind.

John is thirty-one, trying to breathe through the mess of fear and pure excitement in his gut as the plane takes off for Afghanistan.

John is thirty-three, sitting stunned in the mess hall in the middle of a losing war. The desert heat rolls in in a wave as the door swings open. James Sholto's eyes are dark with hurt, his face an echo of John's ringing shock. But he's looked like that all day, since the encounters with civilian-clothed snipers and IEDs picked up from occasional to hourly and they started losing man after man after man. "I heard about your sister," he says, and John murmurs, "Thank you," which doesn't make any sense at all, but Sholto's mouth tightens and he steps closer; reaches out a hand. It hovers over John's shoulder a moment, then drops to his side again. "I'll speak to the JCCC, put in a request for you," he offers quietly. "You should be able to get leave for this. If she's relapsed--if she came that close--"

"But you need me," John says, and he means the unit, but he also doesn't quite, because Sholto's exhausted, and damned if the good men don't get the most damaged out here.

Sholto's mouth moves slightly, wordlessly, and then his hand comes up again and this time he rests it firmly on John's shoulder. "We'll be here when you get back," he says. "Go be with Harry. We'll be fine."

But of course they come under fire before his request goes through, and by the time he wakes in hospital Harry's deadly sober, shaking with fear beside his bed. Infection surges and retreats, beat back by rounds of antibiotics dripping into his veins through his pierced and bruised skin; dying away at last, but not before it's crept all through the muscles of his shoulder, poisoned his blood. Fever drains him dry. He gets an honorable discharge. He's too weak to even be angry.

When John's allowed out of bed, his right leg won't bear weight without pain, for no medical reason at all. It's like someone slammed a fist into his side, knocked him off his balance and he can't get it back. He walks like he's reeling and it's wrong, and it's right.

Slowly, his strength returns. He's watching the evening news on the TV set anchored to the ceiling in his semi-private room, stretching his arm out, lifting and lowering it, trying to preserve as much function as he can. Without warning, a photo of James Sholto's face fills the screen, his blue eyes and a smile John remembers from before things got so bad, and the newscasters are talking animatedly about a tragedy, a firefight, young lives lost, a mission gone wrong, and John can't think, can't see the room clearly until he hears the words, "Major Sholto's condition at this time is stable," and he pulls in air with an enormous gasp.

He emails his mates who are still over there but it's all classified stuff and it's more than a week before anyone can tell him about Sholto's injuries, where he's been taken, the how and the why of the fight--not that there's logic to it, whether you're blown to pieces or left to go on through any given day. He knows this. John slams his good fist into the covers over and over and wonders who took care of James while he was bleeding out, waiting for the AME. Who's with him now. Whether he knows that it wasn't his fault.

The media storm grows. Sholto's medaled and he's vilified and he's stripped bare and examined for the nation's judgment every night, and John can barely watch him on screen, blinking in the cameras' flares, holding himself so carefully, one arm hanging useless at his side. Half his face burnt raw. John sends a message to an email address he's never used before, never needed to; he's never been separated from James for more than a week since he was first assigned to the unit. He gets no response. He sends another, and another. Asks if he can call. He can't stop himself thinking that if he could just see him once he might be able to remind him why the whole unit loved James Sholto so damn much--remind him who he was, and is, whatever the world decides.

The message he finally gets is nearly nothing. I can't right now, it says. Write me later, when this is over. I'll try. You were a hell of a good soldier. Never thought we'd both go home so soon.

He thinks, I can't have loved him like that. I'd have realized before now.

Harry's had to go back to work. It took him weeks to notice Clara's entire absence, Harry's terrifying solitude. He'd sworn at Harry when he realized she's managed to lose her wife along with her sobriety. He can't decide if he regrets shouting. He doesn't know what Harry needs. He doesn't seem to know much of anything any more. The doctors say he's almost ready to go home and he can't think where that would be. His left hand keeps trembling, like an old man's hand. Like he's afraid. He is afraid. He's constantly afraid of nothing at all.

They discharge him. Everything in London looks the way it always did. There's a constant chilly mizzle as November drags on and dead leaves blow down the street, pile up in the alcove while he struggles to unlock the door to the back stairs and lurch his way up to the army-paid bedsit. He can't remember why he ever loved this city.


	3. Chapter 3

But everything ends, even the worst times. The night drives through the desert, taken in grim silence when there were reports of insurgents in wait--those were hours that took years off his life. Never enough sleep before it started, so you'd start to drift off, and then startle awake, a thousand times, and every time the same flat desert for miles around the convoy, gritty sand glowing in the starlight and bizarre heaps of rock in shadow, the same black stillness, drowning them. And then suddenly you'd open your eyes and see a little color on the horizon, a streak of red and dusty gold, and feel a bit of heat coming into the air, and the night would be over. Hours to go until you made it to the base, but you'd outlived the darkness.  
  
Walking back from a physio appointment, silently cursing his leg and half-asleep on his feet from the last night's broken dreams, he suddenly registers a voice saying, "John! John Watson!" It's the strangest sensation--has it really been so long since there was anyone around who'd call his name? And then it's a face he knows and he doesn't, and he's trying his hardest to place it, hoping to God it isn't somebody he should remember, but it's just Mike. One of the blokes from Bart's, from training, never knew him that well, so why the sudden shame at being seen like this?  John sits down with him on a bench, tries for small talk, God help him. Tries to stop his hand trembling. He laughs when Mike says he should try a flatshare, if he's broke. He's remembering John as he was, hasn't any idea what it's been like. Who'd want to live with him now?  
  
He didn't expect Mike to laugh and claim he's not the only man impossible to live with. "You're the second person to say that to me today," Mike smiles, and it makes him wonder. Given the people he's lived with (sorry, Mum. Sorry, Harry), there's not much he can't handle.  
  
He kind of wants to know what makes the other man impossible.  
  
Within twenty-four hours, he knows. Sherlock Holmes (what a name) has gone from a cryptic, poncy charmer exiting their meeting with a wink and a smile for John, to a terror, a revelation, a combination of brilliant and joyous and utterly cracked that's woken John up in a way he can't describe. Within minutes of going to see the flat, the police had shown up looking for help with a serial killer, of all things, his possible flatmate apparently being an actual detective. The kind who gets called in to look at murders. And he'd given John a look he'd felt all through him, the way you feel when the first fire's exchanged, the way you feel when it ends and silence falls and you realize you've missed your death again, you get to live. "Want to see?" he'd asked him.  
  
The energy of the man was like a shot that went right to John's brain, the clarity of the way he saw the world, everything, everyone, down to impossible levels of certainty. The way he saw John. Wanted John with him while he shouted and demanded and expected the world to bend to his orders, and the world did, a bit.  
  
The way John ran through the streets with solid strides and forgot he'd ever limped and reeled away from the wreck of his life.  
  
When they come back into the flat around four a.m., full of late night Chinese and laughing, carrying the duffles with the few things he has to move--holding them carefully around the powder burns in his hands from a shot fired into a murderer, bringing his deserved end--he realizes suddenly, I live here now. This is mine now. He weaves his way up the stairs, wrecked on adrenaline and exhaustion, and falls into his unmade bed. Sleeps dreamlessly, drunkenly. Wakes to the echo of rain on the roof and the lovely smell of coffee from below.  
  
When he wanders downstairs in his trousers, barefoot, Sherlock's bent over a scatter of experimental clutter on the kitchen table. He spies something not-too-long gone in the process of dissection, and several basins of suspicious fluid. Guess we eat in the living room, then, John thinks, and says, "Good morning."  
  
"Good afternoon." Sherlock raises an eyebrow, smiles.  
  
"God, what time is it?"  
  
"Past one. Reasonable, given our activities last night." He's stirring an unknown, steaming, dark liquid in a small beaker.  
  
"Not used to sleeping in," John admits, and pulls a mug from the heap in the rack. Fills it from the coffee pot. Looks suspiciously from his mug to the beaker, and back, comparing the color of the contents.  
  
"Is that coffee in your beaker or an experiment in my mug?"  
  
Sherlock snorts. "I'd like to say experiment and see your face. But it's coffee."  
  
"Right, then." He didn't have much of a look at the flat before they'd torn off in search of a murderer. He starts to circle around the sitting room, examining things. Dead bat and pinned beetles in a frame over the fireplace. Books of poetry on the shelves, textbooks, lurid "true crime" paperbacks. Elle and Vogue. He grins. Stares at the giant buffalo skull on the wall, flicks a finger at the headphones resting between its horns.  
  
He's surprised when he sees the violin sitting on the table. He hadn't been expecting that from a chemist with a murder obsession. "Do you play?" he asks.  
  
Sherlock looks up from the microscope and his eyes warm immediately, a slow smile waking his face. "Yep," is all he says, but he stands (God, he's tall) and walks over, picks up the instrument with delicate care and starts to tune the strings, plucking each one softly while his long fingers twist the pegs back and forth, searching for the perfect tone. "Any requests?"  
  
He's never had anyone play for him. A roommate in uni with a guitar and an unhealthy fixation on the glories of Janet Jackson--that was the closest he'd gotten to serenades before breakfast. "Dunno what I like," he admits.  
  
"I'll figure it out," Sherlock says. He raises the bow and his eyes close as it slides across the strings, pulling the first notes into the room. His hands are huge, and covered in scars, little stains and burns from his experiments, and they hold the bow with the precision John's head surgeon held a blade, and they move with the concentrated care John's seen a really good nurse give a soldier worn out and breathless with pain. Sherlock plays, and the rain runs down the window, and John sits down and cradles his coffee and lets his eyes close in the warmth of the room.


	4. Chapter 4

They had less than two years. He didn't know. He couldn't have known.

  
They laughed together more than he ever had. They talked constantly, but never about much. Neither of them were good with words when it mattered.

  
Sherlock filled all the space in their home, in his head.

  
He had no idea what went on in Sherlock's mind, most of the time. What he wanted. Couldn't help wondering, but the most he'd ever said was that he didn't have friends, and he didn't want a lover. He had the work. He had John. His blogger. His partner. His conductor of light.

  
They'd become known, somehow, and the building media storm had stirred something lodged deep in John's brain. He'd thought of James often, and asked Sherlock to be careful, and Sherlock had scoffed--laughed at the judge and scorned the papers. He hadn't seemed to mind what anyone thought of him, till that last night, when John's passing comment had twigged something in his mind, and then all at once he'd been shouting at John, furious and terrified that they'd gotten to John, that John doubted him. But John never had. Even after it all went to hell, even when they were fugitives cuffed together, running pellmell through the darkened streets, John had thought he'd had a plan. He'd thought Sherlock would find a way out of it, because he always did, and they'd laugh about it later. He'd never thought that night in the lab was the last they'd get. He had not thought once that Sherlock might jump.  
  
Lestrade brings him home, after. He's had to give a statement. Sally Donovan had brought him coffee. He tries to unlock the door to the flat, but his hand is trembling. Wordlessly, Greg takes the key and manages it for him. And then Mrs. Hudson is crying in the hall, and Greg stops, so John goes up alone. Puts away his coat, his shoes, strips off the clothes he'd been wearing and goes right into the shower. He hates showers. He's had a hundred too many frigid, rushed ones in the early hours in Kandahar. But he steps in and turns it on as hot as he can bear and pulls the curtain closed around him, lets the water pour over his face, drown out the world. Breathes the steam and stands still, swaying slightly. He hears Greg call his name, and then a tentative knock on the bathroom door, and says steadily, "I'll be a while."

  
Cupboard doors open and close in the kitchen. He feels an irrational rage rising inside his chest. Those are our things. Don't touch them. Those are ours.

  
Lestrade's voice again, in the hall. "John, I'm going back to the station. I'll check in again later. Call me, yeah? If you need--anything. Call me."

  
Finally, silence in the flat.

  
He shuts the water off, pulls the curtain back. Stands dripping on the mat.

  
Towels off carefully. Didn't think to bring a bathrobe. Doesn't matter. There's no one here.

  
There's no one here.

  
The shivers start there. He gets himself out into the hall, and stands gasping a little. His door, just there on John's left. Silence in the flat.

  
Come on, Watson. Get it together, soldier.

  
He pulls back on the shirt and trousers he'd had on before. Lestrade had left the kettle steaming on the stove; left a mug beside it, not his favorite. One of the nondescript ones they used for guests. He pours himself out a bit anyway, trying to steady his hand. Only splashes it about a little.

He feels cold all through. His skin is still warm from the scalding shower, and he's shivering. Slowly, he settles into his chair with his tea and thinks that he ought to build a fire, and thinks of Sherlock bending over the hearth, coaxing up the blaze. Looks across at Sherlock's chair. Behind it, on the table, his violin. The book beside it he'd been reading, something German on abnormal psychology. He'd made Sherlock read a bit aloud, in German. Ridiculous-sounding language. They'd been laughing.

  
He doesn't know he'll cry until it starts, the first sob shaking up from inside him without warning. It's embarrassingly loud and uncontrolled. He presses his fist into his mouth, and is taken over.

  
Silence in the flat while he cries.

  
Sherlock would have been shocked at me, he thinks. The more worked up John got, the calmer Sherlock became, trying to steady him. But that was when John was properly angry. Sherlock had never seen John in tears. Would he have left? Said something ridiculous? Would he have tried to help me, touch me? He grabbed my shoulder when I thought the Hound was there. When he locked me in and tried to drug me.

  
He held my face and spun me in circles under the moon. He captured my hand while we ran.

  
I put up my hand like I thought I could reach him there, up on the roof. I could hear him weeping over the phone and I thought he was lying, I know he was lying, _I know you're for real._

  
_No one could be that clever.--You could._

  
Harry calls, and calls, and he can't answer. Finally he texts her, _I'm okay._

  
_Can I come?_ she shoots back immediately.

  
_Please don't. I'm okay. Mrs. Hudson's here._

  
_I'll come this weekend. Just a few hours if you don't want more. I can't believe he actually went and jumped. I'm really fucking sorry, Johnny._

 

How was it possible that James had survived, and Sherlock hadn't? Sherlock was indestructible. Sherlock had him. ( You machine, he'd said, and Sherlock had stayed silent, and he'd left. )

  
He'd thought James Sholto was as lost to him as anyone could be. Now he knows it makes a difference that James is out there, hiding in a country house, living a quiet life he can't imagine.

  
He thinks of Dad, of the pause before Mum said he was lost, the moment there was still a chance he was waiting for John to find him.

  
I had you, Sherlock, and then I lost you. I thought we had time.  
  
  
Mycroft writes, _My brother would wish me to assist you in any way possible. I will handle the funeral arrangements, etc. Will notify you of the schedule. I am sorry, John._

  
John stares, stuck halfway between _Fuck off_ and _What the fuck?,_ and finally settles on answering, _Right._  
  
Mrs. Hudson brings up a roast and makes him a plate. Sits down to watch him eat it. He pushes it down past the nausea. She talks in broken bursts of disbelief. John loses the sense of her words almost immediately. He comes back to himself as she takes the plate and pats his shoulder and says, wavering, "I'll be just downstairs, dear. Even if it's the wee hours, please, just--oh, John--" But she goes.  
  
He can't face his room, alone at the top of the flat. Can't think of lying down and closing his eyes in the silence. But he can't stay upright any more. He slides down and startles awake, rests his head in his hands. Over and over sees Sherlock, a dark shape far above him, the bright sky beyond; hears, "Do this for me, John?"

  
Sometime in the last of the night, he goes to the room at the end of the hall and curls up on the bed, atop the covers, and falls into a shattered sleep.

When he wakes to the soft sounds of someone in the kitchen, making tea, he thinks for a long moment it's Sherlock. He sits up, dizzy, and rubs his face, wondering what's wrong, why the air around him is empty, why everything inside of him feels bruised, and then he sees where he is and remembers and he thinks for the first time, I can't stay in the flat. Not without him.


	5. Chapter 5

He's taken aback by the size of the crowd at the funeral. Sarah brings a group from work, a couple of the janitors, even, and some nurses. There's one he's only worked with twice, the new one, the dyed blonde. "Mary," she says, "if you don't remember. I'm so sorry." He frowns at her, wondering what she thinks she's sorry for. She never knew Sherlock. She has no idea. Sherlock Holmes, the great detective. The supposed fraud. My friend. None of you knew him, he thinks, but he tries a smile and says, "Thanks," because they'd come for his sake and he hadn't expected that. He sits still between Harry (worried and too clingy) and Mrs. Hudson (talking continually, but not expecting him to answer, thank God), in the front row of seats, and doesn't look around as the room fills. People come to say hello anyway, stand in front of him awkwardly. Names surface slowly in his mind. Henry, from the Baskerville case. Andy Galbraith, from Soo Lin's museum.

  
Mycroft had texted, offering him the eulogy, and he'd turned him down immediately, because he couldn't even talk to his therapist about Sherlock without folding in on himself in grief, and how could he possibly stand up in front of a roomful of people and try to explain Sherlock Holmes? Greg talks, instead, sounding awkward and sorry. Wavering here and there. He calls Sherlock a great man. He tells a few stories that make people laugh. He stops and rubs a hand across his eyes once, roughly, startling John, after all the trouble they've given him. He talks about John, the ways he steadied Sherlock, and he can feel people's eyes on him, and it makes him furious. Talk about him, not me. I needed him far more than he ever needed me.

  
His jaw aches, his throat aches, his shoulders ache from holding himself steady. When Mycroft offers a car home, he doesn't even bother to act ungrateful.

  
  
He needs to find another place to stay. He tells her so, when she asks how he is--the new nurse, Mary. It's his third day back at the clinic and he's slurring his words, he's so tired--he watches crap telly in his pajamas every night until he drifts off on the couch at two or three a.m. Wakes up with it still running. No quiet in the flat. "Do you want coffee?" she asks, and when he shrugs, she snorts. "Let me rephrase that. You definitely want coffee." She brings him some, watches him drink it. "How are you doing?"

  
"I'm flat-hunting," he says.

  
"Really? You think moving now is a good idea? That's a lot to take on." You look like shit, she doesn't say.

  
"Busy is good. Something to look for is good."

  
"Right. I'll ask around, see if anyone knows of something."

  
"All right. Thank you." He doesn't know what his face is doing. Whatever she sees, she smiles a little. Takes the empty coffee cup, and says, "I'll send the next patient in."

  
They chat sometimes about things when their shifts overlap. She asks questions. Not about Sherlock. About his army days, his mates at King's. About his sister, back in rehab for the third time. She laughs at him when he says he did rugby in secondary. He pulls up an old team photo online to show her.

  
The new flat is bare and strange and completely empty of memories. He bathes, he eats, he picks up groceries, he washes the dishes. He sleeps in his room. Wakes up at strange times. He keeps whiskey in the sitting room, in a skull decanter that made him snort ( _I'm filling in for the skull?--You're doing an excellent job_ ) when he saw it at the shop. He learns what the the neighborhood streets look like in the still hours before dawn. All the buildings are built on the same repeating pattern.

  
Greg comes by a few times. He talks too carefully, but he says it's good to see him. Claps him on the shoulder while John holds himself still, trying not to wince. He thinks of calling Mrs. Hudson, sometimes. Imagines showing her his new rooms, giving her tea. Her tearful hugs, her stories. He can't do it.

  
Mary and Sarah invite him to the pub with the others sometimes, on a match night. Sometimes he goes.

  
A year after it happened, John asks off work. The next day, Mary comes on morning shift and he says hello and she stops short. "Have you had painkillers yet?" she asks, and when he shakes his head she goes to get some Paracetamol tablets and water. He takes them, lets her think his bloodshot eyes and the scratch in his voice are a hangover. When she says he's coming out with them for dinner, he doesn't argue.

  
He starts going back through the photos on his mobile, posting about their old cases on the blog. A little at a time, as much as he can take. She comments on them sometimes. One night at the pub he looks up and finds her gray eyes watching him, and thinks she has a lovely mouth. Small and soft and curved. He thinks, that was a good thing to notice. A good, normal thing. Something he'd have noticed before.

  
When she kisses him in his office, he kisses her back.

  
He takes her to the grave after their tenth date, and she holds his hand tightly and listens to his quick, tight breaths and says nothing at all. Two months later, she brings her bags to the flat. It's good to see her things around, things that actually look like someone belongs there. His never did.

  
She doesn't fill the empty air where Sherlock should be, but now there's someone with him in the evenings, someone vivid and certain and laughing, someone to bully him to eat his dinner, call his sister. Someone to take his hand at midnight and pull him away from the telly, to bed. Someone breathing beside him when he jolts awake at night. Someone who doesn't ask questions when he groans in his sleep, only tugs on his arm until he wakes and puts it around her and buries his nose in her hair, absorbing her smell, her heat, until she feels more real than the dreams.

  
  
It's been almost two years since it happened. He thinks, I need to do something. Want something.

  
He thinks, I need to want something that could actually happen.

He calls Harry about Mum's engagement ring.

"Are you sure?" she asks. She's met Mary once. Harry isn't easy to talk to. Half an hour into the visit, she and Mary were sniping at each other and Harry'd pulled out John's whiskey and knocked back a finger before he'd noticed. They all do better if Harry and Mary stay far from each other.

  
"Harry. I'm sure. That's why I'm asking you for the ring. Please."

  
"Are you happy with her, Johnny?" There's a quiver in her voice and he hopes to God she's sober. "The way you were with Sherlock?"

  
"Goddammit, Harry, we weren't together! Just because you're gay doesn't mean everyone is!" He hears her sharp breath, regrets it immediately. "I'm sorry. It's just, people kept _saying_ that--"

  
"I know. And I know you weren't with him. I just think, if you would just talk about how it really was, maybe it would help. Being honest with ourselves--"

  
"Oh, God, don't give me AA lines, now. _How it was,_ Harry, was that we were friends. I really--I love Mary. I want to marry her. I like women. I like this one."

  
"Okay, fine, I get it. Just--it's not all or nothing. You could love her and him, too. I just--you're not okay, Johnny, not yet. I haven't seen you messed up like this since Afghanistan. Since James. You weren't even like this for Mum."

  
He makes a sound of frustration between his teeth. "Once and for all, Harry, this doesn't help! You know what? If, _if_ it had been like that between me and Sherlock, if I'd ever thought about anything, even though I like girls, even though God knows he didn't want that, Harry, talking about it like this won't make it better. Telling myself that was real love, or whatever you like, that wouldn't make it better. It would make it so much worse! So stop asking! Stop trying to make something of it! I don't need to dig around looking for more things to grieve. I need to let him go!"

  
There's a very long silence on the line.

  
"I'll send you the ring, Johnny."

  
His hand is trembling. He stretches it out. "All right."

  
"Okay."

  
He waits. He offers, "I know you're just trying to help me."

  
"It's fine. I'm over it. I'm done."

  
He closes his eyes. "I'm sorry I shouted."

  
"It's fine," she repeats. "Congratulations, I guess."

  
It takes him a moment. "Ah, thank you. We'll let you know when we set a date. If she says yes."

  
"She'll say yes," Harry says flatly. "I'll talk to you later, okay?"

  
"All right." He hears the dial tone. Takes a deep breath, lets it out. Tosses the phone onto the sofa, sits down beside it and stares. He's getting married.


	6. Chapter 6

John had meant to propose to Mary tonight. She's curled beside him in the quiet dark, Mum's ring on her finger, even though he'd never actually asked--hadn't gotten the chance, because he'd been right about Sherlock, after all; Sherlock had always had a plan. Sherlock had managed it all without John; had turned out as indestructible as John had once thought--the survived-his-own-suicide kind of unstoppable.

And he'd just turned up, alive, in the middle of John's floundering proposal. Mary had giggled as he stammered, drawled, "Yes?" But just as he was about to get to the actual question, some unreasonable waiter had leaned over his shoulder with a bottle of wine, and he'd looked up, protesting, to see Sherlock Holmes in a bow tie and stolen glasses, smiling at him. John had nearly cried in disbelief, and Sherlock had laughed.

He'd made fun of John's mustache. He'd admitted to lying, had said it was all planned. He'd asked for John back.

John stares into the dark, thinks of Sherlock crashing to the ground under his weight, unresisting. Thinking of his pleading smile, the blood that poured from his nose when John smashed into it with a terrible crunch, his silence and his stillness as John left.

Sherlock's turned up again from God-knows-where, right in the middle of John's carefully patched up life, and right away he's filled up all the air in John's flat, all the space in his mind.

  
  
The day after Sherlock comes back, John stands barefoot in front of the sink, shaving off the idiotic mustache. He takes a cab after work to Baker Street to try again. Just to try, to see what Sherlock could possibly have to say for himself. Of course, it being Baker Street, he's kidnapped and drugged before he walks through the door. Sherlock and Mary come for him, which is surprising on both counts when he thinks about it later. He has a blurred memory of Sherlock's hand on his face, Sherlock's voice saying quietly, "John." But it's Mary asleep by his bed when he wakes in hospital.

So then it's two days since Sherlock came back, and John's only a little less angry, but he goes back to Baker Street again; sits in his old chair while Sherlock stares, and it seems (against all odds) exactly like home. Which is almost a horrible thing, until Sherlock starts to talk about a terrorism case and that feeling goes through him, the rush of first shots fired.

So it's still two days since, but somewhere, talking about what's gone wrong with a bomb has shifted into talking about what's gone wrong with them, and Sherlock is, astoundingly, crying. He says it might have been better if he hadn't come back. John stamps his foot, throws back his head, fighting answering tears; because of course, of course he'd rather have him back this way than not at all. Obviously he forgives him. He says so. Sherlock stares, dumbfounded. Then he begins to laugh, and gives John such a look that he can't help laughing too, and he knows he's lost. Because it's Sherlock. He never could keep his head straight around him. God knows now he never will.

Then it's a week since, and Mary and Sherlock are actually getting on. He's never once been with a woman who liked Sherlock. He doesn't know how to feel. Mary's wearing the ring around, and she's introducing herself to people as his fiancee, which answers the question he never actually asked. She'll marry him. He thinks, I can have them both. I can.

It's been a month. Sherlock's asked him in on three cases. Mary's invited herself along on two, and Sherlock has let her. She mentions one night that she's made Sherlock promise to help with the wedding planning. John, near speechless, manages, "Great, that's great," and wonders if he understands either of them at all.

It's been two months, then three, then four. John is at Baker Street half the time he's off work. Sometimes there are cases. Mostly there's planning. Sherlock learns the bridal colors. Sherlock arranges the seating chart. Sherlock is careful and quiet and sweet. It's worrying John quite a lot.

Mary says he's just terrified. "Why would _he_ be frightened?" John asks and she gives him a look.

What is he afraid of? he thinks. What am I afraid of? So he mentions carefully to Sherlock that nothing's going to change, that they won't lose each other. And Sherlock's hands clench together suddenly, and his fingers twist around each other as he says, "I know. I wasn't worried." John thinks with a sudden clarity, Lying. He's lying to me. I never could tell before.

"You're my best friend," he offers. "You're one of the two I love most in the world," and Sherlock is stunned speechless.

  
  
Four months past, John's at Baker Street late, trying to find a song for their first dance. Mary's been insisting it'll be more romantic if he does it. "I just want to see what you'll choose for us," she'd smiled. "No pressure!" Sherlock's built a fire in the hearth. John's listening to a song on the stereo, something gentle on a single violin. Sherlock lies draped on the sofa in his dressing gown. John studies him.

"I haven't heard you play since you came back," he says.

"Oh." Sherlock looks over. "Haven't you? Would you--like me to?" John nods, and something sparks in Sherlock's eyes. He swings upright, takes up his violin from the table. Plucks softly at the strings, searching for the notes, his fingers delicately working the pegs back and forth. Takes a long breath and raises the bow. For an hour, he plays for John in the firelight and the shadows. The music fills the room with a depth John hasn't heard in it before.

Finally, it ends. For several long moments they look at each other.

"What _was_ that?" John asks; sees Sherlock flush at his tone, the reverence in it.

"Ravel," he says, "then Debussy. But the last part was my own."

"Sherlock. God, that was--" He can't find anything else to say. Sherlock's eyes shine.

"Would you like me to write your first dance?" he asks.

John has to clear his throat several times before he can say yes.   

  
      
Five months past Sherlock's return, John admits he's anxious about the dancing. Mary's made it clear it's not optional, but he's never learned; has only ever tried back in uni, in crowded flats full of students too sloshed to notice him.

"I could teach you," Sherlock says, offhandedly. John snorts, and Sherlock raises an offended eyebrow, and John realizes that he means it.

At first they do upbeat songs, the Beatles, the Foo Fighters. Sherlock tries to teach him to move his hips ("Oh, for God's sake, John, loosen up, you're not a soldier any more!"). John can't stop laughing. Sherlock announces that John's not quite hopeless. John rolls his eyes. Then Sherlock decides they'll try something slower--"I'll teach you how to dip her," he offers; grins at John's embarrassment. Sherlock puts Elvis on the iPod and the stereo croons, _Wise men say/Only fools rush in_. Sherlock's hands are heavy and warm, one settling on his shoulder, one cradling his own. John tries a careful grip on Sherlock's narrow waist with his free hand, and Sherlock nods. "Just turn us slowly," he murmurs. "A bit at a time." John tries. He must do all right, because Sherlock's eyes slide closed, and he smiles a little as they sway. His breath moves over John's forehead. John shifts them gently in a lazy circle, while warmth spreads in his chest.

They go on with the lessons several times a week. They pull the curtains closed and dance in the half-dark. He drives home after, hearing the songs repeat in his mind. She wants to marry me, John thinks. He wants to be my friend. I can have them both. I can.

 

Six months past Sherlock's return, John's getting married. Sherlock stands motionless beside him through the ceremony, as sober as if he's sharing John's nerves. John's voice sounds strange to himself when he speaks. Mary's dark eyes stay steadily on his while they say their vows.

When they walk back down the aisle, James Sholto is sitting in the back row. John had emailed. There'd been no promise to come, no answer except an address for the invite and a "Congratulations, Watson," but he's there in his black dress uniform, walking through the door into the reception, returning John's salute. One side of his face is rippled with pale old scars. His blue eyes are lighter than John had remembered, faded, and he holds himself too still, as though his muscles remember their hurts. He studies John, asks if he's all right. John says he is, thinking of what it was like to serve under that warm attention daily, and finds the memory doesn't hurt any more.

He means to introduce James to Sherlock, but when he turns around Sherlock's disappeared.

Sherlock gives a best man's speech that starts off even more awful than John had expected, and suddenly turns into the strangest, loveliest thing John's ever heard. He talks about the war John fought, the ways he's been wounded; he calls him kind, wise, brave. No one's ever talked to John that way. After all the years of everything done together but nothing said, John can barely take in the words, the flood of gentle pride from him. And then Sherlock says quietly, "You sit between the woman you have made your wife and the man you have saved, the two people who love you most in all the world," and it's too much. He cries. "Did I do it wrong?" Sherlock breathes, frightened, and that's it for his self-control; John gets up, curls a hand around Sherlock's warm neck and pulls him close enough to hear him stop breathing. Closer than dancing. Sherlock goes rigid under his hands, so John lets him go; wipes the tears from his eyes. He can't stop smiling.

  
Six months after Sherlock returns, he plays the tenderest waltz John's ever heard, while John and Mary sway around the dance floor, under the lights.

Then he comes straight over to tell John he thinks Mary's pregnant. Shock jolts through him. He thinks wildly, Of course, of course he'd deduce something really bloody private about us right in the middle of my wedding. Then he thinks, I'm a father, and he straightens up, wraps a hand around the nape of Sherlock's neck, and pulls him near; not thinking, just feeling. 

Then Sherlock's smile breaks apart. He gives John one long look without words that stays in John's mind the rest of the night. Takes a deep breath, and orders John to go dance. Mary pulls him away, laughing.

When he looks back, Sherlock is gone.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: partner abuse
> 
> The blog post referenced is here, on John's BBC-official blog: http://www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk/blog/11august

He texts Sherlock from the sidewalk, _Mary kicked me out. I'm going to the Radisson. Please don't talk to her._ Then he hoists his duffle bag and starts to walk toward the main road to get a cab. He's leaving the car at the flat for her, at least tonight.

He'd known a month past the wedding that things weren't all right between them. She'd always liked the world to go the way she wanted, always liked to be the one to lead a room. But he'd never really had reason to fight her on it. No--he'd never had the motivation. First there was the depression, and the gratitude that she was there, that she wanted to be there when he was such a mess; and it almost helped to have someone around to make his choices for him, tell him the way things should be. Tell him what was real. Then after Sherlock came back there was the excitement of the wedding planning and (frankly) all the space between him and Mary, the time spent at Baker Street. When they were finally together at home it didn't seem worthwhile to make an issue of things.

But even in Cannes, on honeymoon, it was obvious something had changed. They'd been having a long lie-in in the beachfront condo, and he'd pulled out his phone to check his blog and found Sherlock had written an utterly ridiculous post on it, parodying him. He'd snorted, and scolded him in the comments. Sherlock responded immediately with something sassy. Mary had looked over and said he should get offline and pay attention to his wife, in a tone that sounded teasing. "Yeah, in a minute," he'd said, smirking at the screen.

The next day he'd checked it again. Couldn't resist taking another mild shot at Sherlock. When she'd gotten out her own phone and posted a comment telling him off, he'd winked at her. Next thing he knew, her voice had gone cold and she was saying, "That's enough, John. Now."

He logged off quickly and rolled over to face her. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were serious," he'd offered, but she wouldn't look at him.

It took ten minutes of silence interspersed with Mary explaining how painful being ignored felt, and how she hoped this wasn't how they'd go on, and how she needed to know that she was his biggest priority and right then she didn't feel that way, before she'd sighed suddenly and said, "I'm overreacting. I know you didn't mean anything by it. I hope I didn't hurt your feelings."

"It's fine." He'd had no idea what had just happened, and he'd felt a strange mix of embarrassed and angry that he couldn't quite account for.

Something had shifted between them. He'd never realized how often he talked about Sherlock, until he met her raised eyebrow and the edge in her tone every time he brought him up. What was worse, Sherlock hadn't said a word to John since. They'd been back in London for weeks, with no cases, no calls, not a text nor a snarky blog post. Silence. He'd been starting to wonder if Married John wasn't someone Sherlock really felt like knowing.

And then he'd begun to realize Mary didn't brook disagreement in any form. The smallest things--the tone of a joke, the way the dishes were wiped, the socks he left inside out beside the hamper--turned into bitter disappointment, and sarcasm, and silence. It was as though the promise of permanence had given her permission to air out everything she'd ever hated about him. Soon he'd given up arguing. As soon as she pointed something out he'd nod, say, "Sorry, love," and try to do what she'd asked, and then she'd tell him he was lovely, and he'd know in an hour he'd be an idiot again.

Then the dreams started. Every few nights, he'd dream of Sherlock striding toward him, bending over him, eyes sparking with excitement, asking him to come on a case. Running through the streets cuffed to him. Shouting in happiness as an idea, a clue, hit home in his mind. He'd wake thrumming with adrenaline to find himself in their bed, in the shadows of their room, Mary sleeping quietly beside him. It hurt. And then to get the looks he did when he said Sherlock's name, or tried to talk about a case they'd had before--he was starting to feel a bit like he couldn't breathe.

By a month in, he was cycling to work alone rather than ride the few blocks to the clinic with her. She'd insisted on keeping their shifts coordinated so they could have their evenings free to do what she liked with him--make something nice, never takeout, and watch a show, or have one of her friends over. She never mentioned having Sherlock.

He's reached the main road, and drops his duffle on the corner to wait for the next cab to come by. His phone vibrates in his pocket. He hopes to God it's not Mary; pulls it out to find one message. Sherlock. _I'm sorry, I was in the shower. Just got your text. Please come here._

 _All right,_ he writes, pockets the phone, and throws up his hand to the driver just going past. He pulls over. "Where to, mate?"

"Baker Street," he says, and gets in.

 

At the end of that first month, he'd found Sherlock in a drug den beside the neighbor's wayward son John had come to retrieve, casually announcing himself with a, "Hello, John, have you come for me too?" and then insisting his awful state was all for a case. John had taken him, petulant, back to Baker Street, half furious with him, half terrified, only to be faced with a return of Sherlock's charm once they were home, aimed full force at getting him to join the investigation; and damn if it didn't work just as well on John as it had since day one. Even knowing Sherlock was high as a kite. Then he'd found Janine in Sherlock's room, and it felt even worse than Irene had, and he hadn't the faintest right to say a word, any more than before. Hadn't had any right to his hurt. Of course, in the end it had turned out she was for the case, as well. Only Sherlock, he'd thought, would rather spend the night in a crack house than face his actual, rather lovely fake girlfriend--and he'd felt a strange mix of sadness for her and relief that he hadn't been completely mistaken about something so basic as _Sherlock doesn't date._

He'd run off into the night with Sherlock to catch a blackmailer, and broken into one of the most secure offices in the world with the help of the hapless Janine, and Mary had turned up in the middle of it all and shot Sherlock through the heart.

 

The cab is pulling over in front of 221. John offers cash, gets the change, grabs the bag he's had since secondary, stuffed with the few things he'd packed from the flat while he was half-blind with shock and fury. Looks up at the building to find Sherlock in the window. He raises a hand.

John pulls out the key he's kept, unlocks the door. Steps into the familiar musty smell and warmth of the front hall. He takes the stairs slowly, wondering what Sherlock will see when he looks at him. When he opens the door Sherlock is standing in the middle of the sitting room. "John," he says. His face is gray and drained.

"Go ahead," John says, seeing his eyes move over him, and Sherlock winces.

"No, I'm sorry--tell me what you like, I'll leave the rest," he says, but John drops the duffle and shakes his head.

"Please. Better than me having to explain it." He pulls off his coat and stands there, letting Sherlock take him in.

"Things haven't really been all right since you went back," Sherlock says softly, after a moment. "That was obvious from the tension between you two whenever I saw you. You are a loyal person, however, and you'll tolerate quite a lot for people you feel bound to, myself being the prime example. And since you allowed me to persuade you to accept the legitimacy of your continued relationship with her, and since she's pregnant with your child, it would take something drastic for you to leave her now, so near her due date. You said she kicked you out. You brought very little and were going to a good hotel, so you were both angry; it was hasty, not expected. If you'd been calm, you'd have called around for cheaper lodgings, and if she'd been calm, you'd have taken the time to pack more." He stops, takes a deep breath, and John realizes suddenly that he's trembling, and it looks like fury. "Also, you were too careful in removing your jacket. You're hurt. John, what did she do?"

"Nothing too bad," John says. It's hard to get the words out. "She hit me. Bruised a rib, I think, maybe cracked it. She's strong."

Sherlock's nearly snarling. "She deliberately avoided your face, or anywhere visible, so that people wouldn't ask you about the bruise and learn to mistrust her. She believes you won't mention it voluntarily."

A surge of grief goes through John because that's exactly true, and he hadn't thought of it, and he hadn't known she'd been thinking that clearly when she'd done it. The next thing  he has to say is harder. "Also, she told me the baby's not mine. She stepped out on me with that bloke David."

_"John."_

"You honestly didn't know?" John hears the pleading and the anger in his tone. _Make sense of this for me._ "How did _you_ miss that?"

"I was--distracted," Sherlock says. His voice is rough. "Circumstances made it difficult for me to observe her objectively."

After a moment, John nods. He hadn't exactly observed her objectively, either.

"I have to ask you. Has she hurt you before?"

"No, she--This was the first time."

"Has she mistreated you in any way?"

"Not mistreated--no."

"John." Sherlock's eyes are dark with emotion.

"She's very possessive." John takes a deep breath. "She could turn on the tears in a moment, make me feel like shite. But I think she was mostly just angry all the time. Not shouting, you know; it was just--there, under the surface. Like she was waiting for me to get something wrong."

"I would not have told you to trust her if I'd known." Sherlock's hands are clenching and stretching, over and over. "Is she expecting you to come back?"

"Maybe. I don't know. Probably. She seemed blindsided when I actually left like she told me to. I think she expected me to beg. She's always seemed to think I needed her." He hesitates. "I guess to begin with I did. I'm not sure she liked it when I started to get better. I don't think she was prepared for how much you being around--helped me. Changed me."

Sherlock stands still for a long moment, focusing inward. Then his eyes clear and settle on John. "I am so sorry," he says, "but I need you to move quickly, now. Take your bag upstairs, if you like, and put your things away. That will satisfy your need for order and give you some minutes to process your return here. Bring your bank card and ID when you come back down. I will have tea ready for you."

John nods, unsure if he wants to laugh or cry at how _Sherlock_ this all is; tries a small smile to reassure him, and goes.

They take a cab to the bank to remove John's funds. Sherlock meant to take Mary off the account before she drained it, or ruined his credit, but John had protested. "I'm not cutting off my pregnant wife's money!" he'd said, and Sherlock had pulled a face.

"All right, then, pull out what you think is fair, and take your name off the account instead. Make a new account just for you."

"Right."

"Are you leaving her the car?"

"I should."

"All right. Is there anything at home you need right away?"

John thinks. "I have some clothes in the bag I packed. And my cards, and my laptop. Some old photos. I think I forgot my chargers, though."

Sherlock sighs. "Those are easy to replace. If you're sure you're all right with what you have--let's just do this and go home, then."

 

"We could go away," Sherlock suggests first. "The Holmes country house. Or France." But John shakes his head.

"You're right in the middle of tracing that message from Moriarty. You told me you think there's a new man who's taken his place. We can't leave now. I'm not afraid of her."

"She hurt you," Sherlock says, and John looks up at his tone.

"She shot you, Sherlock, and you didn't care, you sent me back to her; but now she's hit me once, that's too much?"

Sherlock sits silent for a minute. Then, "It did matter to me that she shot me, but you needed her, John, and she needed you, and I thought she was redeemable. I thought there was a considerable risk to your wellbeing if you lost her. I thought she cared about you. This--this is not redeemable."

"All right," John breathes. "All right, but next time you're taking it on yourself to choose between your wellbeing and mine, Sherlock, please understand that I need you safe more than I need--well. Pretty much anything."

Sherlock blinks once, twice; stands abruptly, turns his back, pulls out his phone. "Thank you, John. I'm texting Mycroft. I'm going to have him put a watch on our flat and hers, now. He won't take it off until we're sure she's no threat to you or I or anyone else."

"All right," John says, helplessly, because she is an assassin, after all, and Sherlock had said "our flat," meaning him and John and Baker Street; and he would quite like to hug Sherlock now, but Sherlock seems to want to look at anything but John, and he rather thinks he might run from the room if he tried.


	8. Chapter 8

"We need to get you a new number," Sherlock tells John the next day, when he finds him in his chair, staring into space. "We don't want her calling you."

In bed, upstairs, he'd lain awake until very late, and then he'd slept in until an awful hour. Now he's achey and drowsy. He's been trying to pick up about the flat, do something useful, but Mary keeps taking over his mind, things he loved about her, things that hurt, things he can't believe now he ever let slide.

"She kept trying to redefine things for me," he tells Sherlock now, absently. "She'd tell me how something was, and I'd end up taking her view, like it had been my own from the start. You know she told me once she was the best thing that ever happened to me? And I believed her. I started saying it myself. I really thought she'd been saving me." He looks up, finds Sherlock staring. "New number. Right. Ah, what if she needs me for something?"

"Like what?" Sherlock's tone is a little dangerous.

"I don't know, if she goes into labor, or has to make a heating payment and can't find the bloody checks. I don't know!" He feels as though he can't think, as though his brain is full of cotton.

"She's an adult, John. She can manage. You're not responsible for her any more," Sherlock says. He hesitates. "Unless I'm wrong in believing that you have left her permanently?"

John looks up and sees what looks like fear in his face. "God, no, I--well." It's surprisingly hard to actually say it. So much of himself has been wrapped up in the idea of John and Mary, for a long time. "No, I'm done."

Sherlock sighs. "All right. If she truly needs you, she can email you. Or call me. But she doesn't need to be able to call you right now."

That night, after good hot Mexican takeout and a beer, John's programming his new phone chip with the numbers from his old one. Sherlock has been doing something under the microscope in the kitchen with slides and a series of colorful titrations, mumbling to himself, but suddenly John's getting the feeling of eyes on the back of his neck and he realizes it's been perfectly silent in the flat for several minutes. He turns around. Sherlock's looking at him. "What?"

"Would a personal question be acceptable?"

"Go ahead. If I don't like it I'll tell you."

"What started the fight?"

He rubs a hand over his face. This is embarrassing. "She'd gotten angry about something really bloody stupid, for the millionth time. I'd used the wrong soap in the washer, something expensive, apparently, and meant only for her delicates, whatever those are, and she was telling me how I didn't care about anything but myself. And it reminded me of how my mum would get with us, especially Harry, especially when she was drunk--but Mary didn't even have that excuse; she was dead sober. And all of a sudden I realized I was living the worst of my life all over again and I didn't know how I'd gotten there. And I told her so. I told her I didn't have to take it from her."

Sherlock's gaze is intent on him. "Your mother was--abusive?"

John closes his eyes. It's not a word he's ever actually used outside his therapist's office. "Yes. She drank a lot. She knocked us around, too."

He hears Sherlock's footsteps approaching; then the quiet creak of Sherlock's chair as he sits down opposite John. There's silence. He opens his eyes, bracing himself, and sees Sherlock's face is attentive, focused, nothing more. "So you told Mary she was acting like your mother, and Mary did not appreciate the comparison."

"She didn't shout, she just got scarily quiet. She told me where I could get off, I told her I didn't like her tone, and she hit me." His voice shakes on the last words. He closes his eyes.

"John," low and gruff. "How can I help?"

He thinks of warm hands holding him steady, of swaying to the rhythm of a slow song, of feeling safe. "Being here with you helps," he says. He opens his eyes. Sherlock is leaning forward slightly.

"You thought of something and then dismissed it. What was it?"

("You hit me," he'd said, dumbfounded. "You bloody coward."

"You're leaving," she'd answered.

"Damn right I'm leaving," he'd managed, and gone upstairs to pack, and she'd followed him, wide-eyed with fury.

"Go on, then. Go to Sherlock's. God knows how long I've been waiting for you to do it. You love him more than you ever did me," she'd said, and he'd stopped dead in the middle of pulling his pants from the drawer, opened his mouth to deny it and found it was true.

"Yes," he'd said instead, and put the pants in the bag. "I always have. But he doesn't want it, and I wouldn't have left you, Mary. You're doing this to yourself."

There was a long silence, then, "You never guessed I fucked David in the front room, did you? The baby's not even yours."

He'd kept his back turned so she wouldn't see the tears rising, kept blindly packing.)

He looks up into Sherlock's steady eyes and says, "I thought of something, yes, but it wouldn't be fair to you. I'm all right."

"Please tell me, John."

He can count on one hand the number of times Sherlock has said please. He doesn't know if he can answer. Finally he manages, "It would help if you would touch me."

Silence. Sherlock's eyes are fixed on him and his mouth is open slightly and he's fascinated, because Sherlock is never speechless. Then his face changes, shock pushed out by rising tenderness. "John. That would not be unfair to me. I've accepted the difference in our natures, our feelings. I can touch you. It doesn't have to be anything more, it's just--what you need now."

He's stunned, but he shouldn't be. If Mary had seen his feelings, of course Sherlock's recognized them too. Sherlock sees everything about him. How long has he known? John thinks, and then, He doesn't mind?

He doesn't mind.

"All right," he murmurs, and Sherlock's eyes are gentle and he says, "Come on, then," and stands. Holds out his hands. Feeling awkward as hell, John stands up, too, and goes to him, and oh, being held by Sherlock in the middle of their sitting room is strange, but it feels like he can breathe for the first time in years. He has no idea what to do, whether to lean up against him, lay his head on his shoulder, hug him back, but Sherlock's hand strokes slowly, carefully up his back and down again and he feels himself go a little looser in his arms.

He backs away. "Thank you," he manages, not quite looking at him, and sits down, seeing out of the corner of his eye Sherlock's growing smile.

"I'll make tea," he says.

John sits in his chair, staring at nothing, hearing the quiet sounds of Sherlock filling the kettle, setting their mugs on the counter, and thinks, He's fine with it. We're fine. All this time, and I wouldn't even say it to myself. What on earth was I so afraid of?

Mary emails him seven times in two days. She's furious that his old mobile number's turned off. She's pleading him to think of the baby. She's apologizing, saying she didn't mean it, asking how he could believe she wanted him gone. He thinks at first that he can handle it, but partway through reading her second message, the anger and guilt combine in a wave that half-drowns him and he pushes the laptop away; tries to work the tremor out of his hand. Sherlock has apparently been watching him while he'd looked like he was reading, because--"Let me do it," he says, and when John nods, he takes the laptop to his room and doesn't come out for a while.

Days go by, and he gets lost in his head, standing at the sink with a dish he'd meant to wash, or in front of the icebox trying to make a grocery list; all the things that she'd said about who he was, who they were together, running on a loop in his mind. He keeps trying to sort it all out, somehow, the truth from the lies, and there's so bloody much. But now  when he's gone too long, he's brought back to reality by a hand brushing his arm, or resting for a moment on his back, as Sherlock walks by.

He finally thinks to ask where Mrs. Hudson is. "Visiting her sister," Sherlock says. "I haven't told her you're back yet; I thought you might need a bit before you dealt with her feelings about all this. Was that right?" and John nods, manages a little laugh, unspeakably grateful.

He tells Sherlock that night when they've both been reading in front of the fire, "You know what's getting to me? I didn't know how to be a dad; mine left. I wasn't sure how I'd manage, and now I'm not even getting the chance to try. I'm not sure I know who I'm meant to be now. I'm not a husband, I'm not someone's father. I'm not anything."

Sherlock has been listening quietly, but he snorts at that and says, "You are. You're you, you're John. You're--magnificent," and John glances up, startled, to find sincerity in his face. He means it, John thinks, and some of the weight in his chest lessens.

He googles divorce laws; clicks on an ad for an attorney and is promptly horrified at the fees. He mentions his discouragement over the cheese toasties with tomato Sherlock makes for lunch, and Sherlock says, "Don't be ridiculous, people get payment plans." And he smiles.

He hates the silence in his room at night. He starts staying up until Sherlock goes to bed, eleven or twelve or one in the morning. He sits half-drowsing on the sofa one evening in the lamplight, watching a black-and-white comedy bit on telly, while Sherlock works beside him on his laptop. Then some woman comes onscreen holding a fairly new baby, and it's making little baby noises, waving its hands, and suddenly grief pours through him in a flood. He blinks hard to keep the tears back, sniffs; rubs his hands on his thighs, trying to hold himself together. After a moment Sherlock's arm comes carefully around to rest behind him; one hand settles on John's far shoulder. Then, when John calms, Sherlock's fingers start to stroke his shoulder gently, absentmindedly, through the sleeve, while he goes on typing on the laptop with his free hand, and John feels comfort seeping in, the tension draining away from his body; slides down through layers of exhaustion into a punch-drunk sleep.

He wakes to find the telly off and his face pressed into the soft warmth of Sherlock's neck. "Oh my God," he mumbles, sitting up sharply. "Oh, God, I am so sorry."

"John." Sherlock looks down at him. His eyes are startlingly kind. "I told you, it's not unfair. I'm all right if you are. I'll never expect anything you can't give me."

John is still half-asleep, so he runs that sentence over in his mind several times. Can't quite look at Sherlock. "What?"

"I'm not expecting anything." Sherlock's fingers start stroking John's shoulder again. "I know what our natures are. I'm grateful your awareness of my feelings doesn't preclude our being close." He's slipping into the slightly formal phrasing that means he's nervous, John notes absently, and suddenly Sherlock's fingers still. "Have I misunderstood you?" he asks. "Are you--were you aware?"

"Of _your_ feelings," John murmurs, beginning to wake up rather thoroughly. He turns to look up at him. "When you said you'd accepted the difference in our feelings, you didn't mean--mine?"

There's  a long, stunned silence, during which Sherlock's ears slowly flush pink, and then John says, "Oh, my God. Sherlock, I'm going to need you to spell this out for me. Please be very specific. What exactly is the difference between us?"

Sherlock pulls his arm out from behind John's shoulders, winds his fingers around each other in his lap. "Well." He looks down. "I love you."

"So you've said." He's fighting to keep his voice steady and calm. "And I love you, too; I've told you so. But--what way do you love me?"

"I--" He's still not looking up. "I am in love with you, John. Completely. But you are heterosexual, you are my friend; you are not--not in love with me?" It's clear he meant it as a statement but it's slid up into a question instead.

"Holy hell," John says, very softly, and Sherlock shifts forward onto the edge of the sofa. He looks like he's about to flee. "Wait." Adrenaline rushes feel horrible when he doesn't have someone to fight. He can't quite seem to get his breath. His heart is beating too hard. "Sherlock, I'm in love with you, too."


	9. Chapter 9

"You. You're in love with me?" Sherlock's paused on the edge of the sofa. His voice has gone high and disbelieving. "But you're not gay. You said you weren't gay."  
  
"I'm not. You know I like women. But I guess I'm not really straight. It's confused the hell out of me. There was James, and now there's you."  
  
"You're bisexual," Sherlock breathes, and then after a moment, "Yes, that's an actual psychosexual identity, John, not just another word for closeted." He frowns, finally looking at him. "You want me."  
  
It knocks him sideways, hearing him say it. "I want you."  
  
"You told everyone you didn't. You made that very clear whenever it was suggested."  
  
"I made it clear we weren't together, yes. Not that I wouldn't want to be." Sherlock's eyebrows lift. "Okay, yeah. I acted like I didn't. You'd said, 'married to my work.' The thing with James didn't end well, and I've seen the shite Harry's gone through for being gay. It was so much easier to tell myself I was just confused about what I felt and why--I thought I'd lose you if you guessed." He laughs bitterly.  
  
Sherlock's eyes flicker over him. "But you're not confused."  
  
"Now? No. I'm quite clear now."  
  
"Clear--on your feelings. On me."  
  
"On you." He leans closer. "You're it for me, Sherlock. Look at me. See for yourself if I'm telling the truth." Some panicked part of his brain is wondering what on earth he's doing, but it's being overridden by pure calm. This is right, he thinks, astounded. How did it take us so bloody long to get here? Then he jumps as Sherlock's hands come up to cup his face, his long thumbs stroking over John's cheekbones as he studies him.  
  
"You love me," he says, finally, and it's not a question anymore.  
  
"Yes." He whispers it, because he feels like he's watching something being born, the way Sherlock is looking at him now. The tides of emotion passing over his face, filling his eyes. His lips part, then his arms close around John, pulling him in, folding him up into his chest, and his head comes down to rest atop John's. He's breathing quickly.  
  
"Can I hold you like this?"  
  
"Yes. Please." John shifts to fit against him better.  
  
"Are you all right, John?"  
  
"God, yes."  
  
"Can I--" He stops. "Can I kiss you, then?"  
  
John smiles into Sherlock's chest. Pulls back a little, tips up his face in invitation.  
  
It's a little rough, a little shy, and still he's overwhelmed. Sherlock's hand slides gently around John's nape, cradling John's head. John presses into the kiss, puts all his hope into it for Sherlock to feel. Finally Sherlock pulls away with a silent breath. His pulse is leaping in his throat, and his eyes are wet and shining, and that's it for John's self control; he buries himself in him.  
  
"I love you," he says into Sherlock's neck, feeling a shiver run through him. "I love you."  
  
It would be funny if it wasn't so awkward. When they finally pull apart, neither of them has any idea what to do. John pulls his shirt into place, smooths his hair down, touches Sherlock's shoulder through the soft dressing gown. Sherlock rubs a hand through his curls. "That was unexpected," he says, and John laughs.  
  
"Ah, very. What do we--do, now?"  
  
"We could talk about it."  
  
"We probably should," John agrees. "Um, how long have you--when did you start--this?" He gestures to himself.  
  
"Wanting you?" Sherlock gives a small laugh. "Consciously? At Angelo's."  
  
"When, that first night?" John stares.  
  
"Yes. Dismissed it out of hand, of course. I never thought I could make you happy. Also, I may have been a bit misled as to the value and durability of romance, at the time."  
  
"You did a bloody bad job of not being romantic, then. The winking, the damned violin. Starlit chases through the streets."  
  
Sherlock smiles, startled and sweet. "I realize now that taking you out to dinner immediately may not have been the best plan, if I meant to act uninterested."  
  
"And then I came on to you." John shakes his head. "You realize I didn't even recognize what I was doing until you pointed it out? Embarrassed the hell out of me."  
  
"And then we both backed off precipitously. A perfect start to years of denial."  
  
John remembers the shine of that night. "I was happy, though."  
  
"Me, too." Sherlock's look is surprisingly sober. "Are you now?"  
  
"Happy? Yes." John looks at him. "Isn't it obvious?"  
  
"You've been so sad." It's a simple statement, and it takes his breath away, the grief apparent in it.  
  
"Yes. Well. I will be, for a while. I just lost a lot, Sherlock, but--hm." He clears his throat, looks up carefully. "If I have you, now--"  
  
"You have me. You will always have me."  
  
"Then that's settled. I'm going to be all right."  
  
He finds himself pulled suddenly, fiercely up against Sherlock again, and says, "Oi!" into his chest.  
  
There's no sleeping in Baker Street until nearly sunrise.  
  
  
  
When he wakes on the sofa, carefully covered with the blanket from his chair, Sherlock's at the sitting room table in the sunlight, reading the paper and eating a biscuit. "You're awake," he says. His eyes are full of everything that apparently actually did happen last night.  
  
"More or less awake," John mutters, pushing up into something like a sitting position, because he's not very, and he can barely take in the emotion in Sherlock's face. It's rather a lot.  
  
"Do you want breakfast?"  
  
"Not yet. Coffee in a bit."  
  
"May I touch you?" Sherlock says, and he nods blearily, and then Sherlock's beside him, wrapping around him, his breath in John's ear. "Do you still love me?" he murmurs into it.  
  
John scrunches up his face because he's really not a morning person and he's not sure he can comprehend this much happiness. "I still love you."  
  
"You don't sound ready to be up." Suddenly he's pulled down onto Sherlock, held close against him as he slides down to lay on the sofa under John.  
  
"Hey!" He squirms around, gets his head nestled comfortably into Sherlock's shoulder, turned away so his curls tickle John's neck. Sherlock's arms tighten around his middle.  
  
"Hey," he answers, in curious tones. "Do you really not want to do this or are you just grumbly when you wake up?"  
  
"Shut up," John groans and settles into him.  
  
He doesn't realize he's fallen asleep again until Sherlock's phone vibrates under John's hip. "'s yours," he slurs, and feels Sherlock's hand slide in between them to pull the phone from his trouser pocket.  
  
A subtle change in the tension of Sherlock's body under him alerts him. Years of military training snap into place and he's focused in a moment; pushes up on his forearms to see Sherlock's face. "What's wrong?"  
  
Sherlock's expression is tight. He's tapping out a text. After a long moment, he meets John's look. "Bluntly or gently?"  
  
"Please be blunt."  
  
"Mary's gone."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on characterization. It's a bit tricky figuring out how they'd be together--tactile, cautious, mushy, quiet? No way to be sure yet--they love throwing us curveballs on their character development. 
> 
> That said, regarding touch, Sherlock is very hands-off usually, but he's notably touchy with Mrs. Hudson and sometimes John--the face-grab-and-spin, the pats, the handholding, the helping on with the coat and the dancing lessons. But he becomes clearly less so after the Fall; while John suddenly becomes more so. He voluntarily touches Sherlock just once before, with a little pat on the hip after he drags him to bed, drugged. But starting with the stag night, he winks at Sherlock, pats his arm, drags him away from a fight, snuggles with him on the stairs, grabs his knee, sits comfortably on the sofa with Sherlock's arm around him; and on his wedding day, after he hears Sherlock say aloud how much he adores him, he grabs his neck twice to pull him in. This is so much more than we ever see with Mary or any girlfriend. So I think John craves touch, is eager to give it, when he feels loved and safe and his defenses are down; he's just terribly repressed, to the point where he can't touch Sherlock until he's nearly married and it's safe and Sherlock won't suspect how much it means. And I think Sherlock likes to be physical with people he trusts completely, but holds himself back from John after the return because of Mary, because he realizes John's not his anymore.
> 
> They've also both learned something about telling each other how they love each other post-fall. Almost everything of significance emotionally is said in Season 3; they're rather startingly vulnerable. They've grown up, and learned not to waste time, not to take for granted the chance to say things. So I think there's hope for them to be honest with each other and talk things out at last.


	10. Chapter 10

"Gone. Gone?"  
  
John scrambles up, and Sherlock pulls himself out from under him to sit upright against the sofa cushions. He's still texting. "She's slipped through Mycroft's surveillance somehow. I'm not sure anyone's ever done that before. It seems," as his phone goes off again, "she went for groceries and the agent watching the feed lost her in the crowd in Tesco's, and she never showed up again. There's no footage of her leaving the building. John, I think she's gone to ground."  
  
He looks up, after a moment, when John doesn't answer. Drops his phone, and takes John's face in both his hands again. "John, it's all right. It's okay."  
  
"She'll kill you," John whispers. Sherlock's mouth curves suddenly into a smile; his hands drop into his lap.  
  
"No, she won't, John. I think she's left to have the baby."  
  
"Oh. Oh, God." John puts a hand over his eyes. "You're right. Of course." He looks up again, after a moment. "But--that doesn't buy us that much time. A month, six weeks at the most. She's still going to come for you."  
  
"Why would you say that? We know who she really is, and she's just given us the perfect motivation to turn her in; she should give us a wide berth. She should leave England."  
  
"Think about it. Everything she did to me was aimed at keeping me controlled, keeping me hers. She took over my life when I was a mess from losing you. She loved being the one person I depended on." It's dawning on him now. "That first night you came back--she'd seen how I'd mourned you, she knew she'd lose me if I had to choose between you and her, so she made us into a trio. Got you to be her friend, and made you watch while she married me. What do they say?--Keep your friends close and your enemies closer? She got you helping her with the bloody seating chart!"  
  
"You'd have chosen me? She told me she'd talk you around, that first night. I thought you hated me." Sherlock is staring.  
  
"She would. Make you think you needed her, that you'd have lost me without her good influence. She never tried anything like 'talking me around.' She just embarrassed me over shaving the mustache--kept insisting I was doing it for you, not her. Which I was. And then she went on saying she knew I was going to see you. She sat in bed and read my old stories about you aloud and laughed at me. She was letting me know she had me figured out and she had her eye on me and you. I was never going to stay away from you, and she knew it. She was so jealous of you, Sherlock. One month past our wedding, and she didn't even want to hear your name. She said I loved you more than I ever loved her." He stops at the expression on Sherlock's face. "Are you all right?"  
  
"Yes, it's just--" He swallows. "I'm not sure how to feel."  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"I'm very angry with her, John, and still, I'm--very grateful for her assessment of the situation."  
  
John narrows his eyes. "What?"  
  
"You love me more than you loved her?"  
  
He finds he can't speak; nods. Sherlock's hand comes to rest on John's.  
  
"All right, then. So you think she's coming back, because she lost you to me, and she's not rational about you."  
  
"Yes."  
  
Sherlock reads another message. "Mycroft's asking if you want to them to look for her or let her go."  
  
"Look for her. If we don't we'll never know if we're safe."  
  
"John." His eyes are unreadable. "If we do, we may expose her to the people she's been running from. All Mycroft knows now is that your newly estranged wife is missing and that we were concerned about the potential of domestic violence. If I explain the actual situation, MI6 may feel obligated to inform the international security community of her whereabouts."  
  
My wife, John thinks. Mary. Then: Not Mary. That's not her name. He remembers her laughing in the sun outside the church; remembers burying his face in her hair in the night when he woke from another nightmare. Then he remembers her firing into the air in the shadows of the empty house, hard-eyed; kicking the coin across the floor to Sherlock as he waited through his pain to find the truth of what she'd meant to do to him; the lethal clarity in her voice when she'd told Sherlock there was nothing she wouldn't do to keep John. She'd said it like a warning. She'd never once said she was sorry she'd shot him.  
  
Sherlock's eyes are on John's face; his fingers are running up and down John's, gently. John turns his hand over, captures them. "We need to find her. Tell him."  
  
"All right."  
  
He texts Mycroft, still holding John's hand.  
  
  
"Do I have your permission to look into her past identities?"  
  
"What? Yes, of course." John looks up from the list of their wedding guests from last year. He's been sorting them out into "people who might possibly know who or where she is" and "people who definitely haven't the faintest." David's at the top of the "might know" list and he rather wishes he could be there when Mycroft's agent shows up to ask him some questions. He wonders if he knows she's an assassin for hire. Did that sort of thing come up during pillow talk?  
  
Well, it never did for us, he thinks, and then Sherlock's hand brushes over his hair and he comes back to reality.  
  
Sherlock's giving him an assessing look. "So we should talk to the CIA, since she worked for them, and use any contacts they can give us? Even if it puts her in danger?"  
  
"I meant it, Sherlock, yes. I'm not having you shot a second time."  
  
Sherlock's hand slides down to the back of his head and then his mouth is on John's in a long, gentle kiss. "I'll suggest it to Mycroft immediately," Sherlock says after he pulls away.  
  
John rubs a hand over his mouth, wishing for more kissing and less urgent manhunt coordinating. "Why exactly are we involving Mycroft? Other than his access to all the resources of the British Kingdom. Why'd you have him put her under surveillance in the first place? You don't want his help."  
  
"Your safety matters more than my pride, John."  
  
"Right," he breathes, and thinks that might be the most romantic thing Sherlock's said to him.  
  
Five minutes later, Sherlock's shouting, "What on earth?" at his phone. John puts the list back down.  
  
"God. What happened?"  
  
"He won't talk to the Americans. He says MI6 has it handled."  
  
"Maybe they've got it handled?"  
  
Sherlock snorts. "Maybe, or maybe he still can't forget that I actually liked working under the Agency's supervision on Mrs. Hudson's husband's case that summer in Florida. They're not really better employers than Mycroft's people, per se, but they have a much higher tolerance of their agents' drug habits." He catches John's expression. "Well. We'll leave that in the past, then. I'm going to go call them myself."  
  
"You have a number for the CIA?"  
  
"John. I'm an unofficial MI6 operative on call who just spent a summer in Serbia. And I'm a Holmes. Of course I have contacts in the CIA. Also, they have a tip line. The clerk at Speedy's could call this in if he wanted."  
  
"Enough with the smugness," John says to his smirk.  
  
"You'll never have enough of the smugness," Sherlock says, and goes into the hall to call the Americans.


	11. Chapter 11

Thirty minutes later, in the middle of a sandwich, John gets the first text.  
  
_Please stay alert. Behave normally. Do not leave town._  
  
"Sherlock, look at this. It's from a number I don't have saved."  
  
Sherlock takes his mobile; frowns. "You definitely don't recognize the number?"  
  
"No. Is it a warning?"  
  
"It certainly sounds like one. The 'Please' indicates particular personal concern." His eyes are sober as he hands the phone back to John.  
  
John hesitates. "Is there any chance it could be Mary?"  
  
Sherlock's mouth thins. "I suppose it could be."  
  
"There just aren't that many people who'd text me cryptic warnings from numbers I don't recognize. Generally."  
  
"True." They both stand silent.  
  
John ventures, "Maybe someone's already after her, and she thinks they might come for me too?"  
  
"Someone chasing her who might target you. Like the new Moriarty?"  
  
"Oh, God. Why would he be after her?"  
  
Sherlock shakes his head. "I can't be sure. There's a thought I've been having for the last hour. It's not good. Should I keep it to myself until I can confirm it?"  
  
"No, I want to know."  
  
Sherlock begins to pace. John sits down in his chair; stretches out his hand. After a moment, Sherlock says, "You mentioned recently that Mary came into your life quite soon after I left you."  
  
"That's right. She'd been on a couple of my shifts a few weeks before that, but I met her properly at your funeral."  
  
Sherlock's brows rise. "Fascinating. Then she immediately took an active interest in you; 'she took over my life,' is the phrase you used."  
  
"She did. She was always asking me to pub nights, getting me to talk about myself, telling me how to handle my depression. She found me the flat I lived in when I left here."  
  
"All right. So she insinuates herself into all of your day-to-day activities. Becomes becomes indispensible to you, and finally, romantically involved with you--who initiated that?"  
  
"She did," John says, very quietly.  
  
"Naturally. Then, according to your perception of her actions, on my return she befriended me in order to maintain her hold over you; her intention was to keep you from having to choose between us, to keep your loyalty from reverting to me at any cost."  
  
"That fits with what I know of her, anyway."  
  
"We know that the identity she's been using is quite new; a few years old, at the most. She hadn't had time to build up a significant corollary of friendships in the area; hence her relatively small contribution to the guest list at your wedding. She was new in town. Prior to that she'd functioned as an assassin for hire."  
  
John rubs a hand over his face. "It's still so strange to hear that."  
  
"Understandable. She was a consummate actress. She would have given you very little indication. That said, Magnussen said he had seen evidence that she had been employed by the CIA, and then gone rogue."  
  
"I always wondered about that." John sighs. "He said it so oddly. 'She's gone freelance now.' Like she was a bloody web designer."  
  
"John!" Sherlock crosses the room in two strides and seizes his hands. "Oh, brilliant. You're exactly right. Present tense--'She's gone freelance'--she was still working. That's our confirmation. John, I believe she was assigned to you."  
  
"What?" John whispers.  
  
Just then, his mobile buzzes again. Message two, same number. _You are being watched. I cannot guarantee your safety._  
  
He holds it up. "Sherlock, this seems serious."  
  
Sherlock studies it; looks up with blazing eyes. "This also aligns with my theory. Her priorities have changed. She must have showed up in town around the time Moriarty first came to our attention. She was a freelance sharpshooter on the run, with no particular ethical encumbrances. Perfect for Moriarty's operation. She joins his outfit; gets a new identity, a new life. He was good at that--he had no trouble creating Richard Brook. Sometime around then, Moriarty introduces himself to us; begins his long game meant to take me down. Finally, he plays his trump card: He dies. I'm believed to be dead as well. She's assigned to keep  an eye on you afterward, for whatever purpose--whether to be sure you didn't follow up on my death and interfere with Moriarty's people, or whether they simply wanted to be sure I was gone, that I didn't contact you. She gets herself hired at your clinic a few weeks before my death. She was meant to watch you. But she began to feel she owned you. Perhaps she did fall in love, in her way. She wanted to keep you."  
  
"Oh." He can barely breathe. "Sherlock, this is a little bit terrifying."  
  
"Quite. So, she's got you handled. Then I cock up the plan by refusing to stay dead. I show up here, complicating her job considerably. The new Moriarty is presumably already in place; I should have anticipated they'd have someone ready. He begins to rebuild his empire as soon as I stop actively taking it down. Maybe she's reassigned to keep an eye on both of us. Moriarty Two Point Oh turns on the pressure for her to do something about it once I start tracking him, after the video; most likely, she's to take us both out, since I've involved you. But she's sentimental about you. Instead of completing her assignment, she becomes uncharacteristically belligerent with you; tells you whatever she has to to get you to leave her  and come to me. She knows I'll protect you. Once you're safe with me, she arranges her affairs and flees."  
  
It sounds so plausible, so clear. But--  
  
"That can't be right, Sherlock. She didn't become belligerent, as you say, out of the blue; she snapped because I called her out on her shite for once. She wanted to hurt me for daring to tell her what she was. And anyway, as possessive as she was, she wouldn't have sent me to you for protection; she'd have tried to convince me to go underground with her."  
  
"Go to ground," Sherlock corrects him absently. He's listening hard.  
  
"Right. Well. If Moriarty Junior had ordered a hit on us and she decided she didn't have the heart to do me in, why not just kill you and take me with her? She wouldn't mind. The first time you got a glimpse of what she was, she shot you through the heart. Didn't dream of trusting you. Didn't even hesitate, after all the time she'd watched me grieve you. And don't give me 'it was surgery' again. She probably aimed badly so I'd stay to help you instead of running after her. She didn't have to do it at all--she knows you can keep secrets, enormous ones. She knows how loyal you are to me and mine. And she chose to kill you. You flatlined, Sherlock. I was there. And I don't trust her."  
  
In the silence, John's phone goes off a third time.  
  
_There is no one I can entirely rely on now. Look after him for me, won't you?_  
  
It takes him a few moments. Then his heart speeds up.  
  
"Sherlock. It isn't Mary." He holds up the phone. "It's Mycroft."


	12. Chapter 12

Raw fear flashes in Sherlock's eyes. Then it's gone and he's turning away, lifting his own phone to his ear. "Mycroft? Hello. Yes, it's about Mummy's birthday gift."  
  
He never calls, John thinks. He hates to call.  
  
"Poetry? All right. What do you think--Keats, Hardy, Emily Dickinson? First edition? New?"  
  
Anyone listening would think he was perfectly calm, a little bored, but John can see the tension in the way he's standing motionless, the fingers of his free hand rippling slightly at his side.  
  
"Right. I'll take care of it; Anthea needn't know. Okay, I'll give Mummy your love. Goodbye." He remains standing with his head a little bowed, his back to John. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck; sighs. Turns.  
  
"MI6 is compromised, John. There are eyes on the flat, and Mycroft can't help us."  
  
  
That night, John lies in bed, watching the lights of cars in the street move slowly across the ceiling through the thin curtains. There's a muffled thump from the sitting room, and a spike of adrenaline goes straight to his heart before he hears Sherlock cursing quietly and then a louder, "Dropped a book. I'm fine, John." They've agreed that while this lasts there should always be one of them alert in the flat. John had promised Sherlock he'd rest till his watch, but his mind won't stop spinning.  
  
  
"What was that about?" he'd demanded after Sherlock hung up, and the shadow in Sherlock's eyes had lifted a little as he smiled.  
  
"Code."  
  
"You were talking about the texts. About our problem."  
  
"Naturally, John, yes."  
  
"Your life-and-death-scenario, the-government-has-fallen secret code revolves around your mum's birthday presents?"  
  
Sherlock tipped his head back at that, regarded the ceiling with mild exasperation. "Of course. It's fairly precise and perfectly innocuous-sounding. And probably should not be discussed in detail just now, since we're being watched; the possibility of being heard as well can't be dismissed."  
  
"Oh, God. All right. What does he mean, compromised? Who's watching us?"  
  
Sherlock picked up John's phone from the arm of the chair and read aloud, "'Please stay alert. Behave normally. You are being watched. I cannot guarantee your safety.' When he looked up his eyes were sober. "There are unfriendly agents in our vicinity; Moriarty's, if my theory is correct. It also seems that they've gotten into MI6. We'll have to figure out the details for ourselves; Mycroft can neither message us the exact facts nor speak with me in person without triggering events best avoided. I assume what you received was sent from a cheap mobile he's used out of sight, probably in the loo, and then disposed of, the message vague enough to not immediately identify the sender or recipient if it's found, minimizing risk to you both. _What,_ John?" as John had begun to giggle a little hysterically.  
  
"I just pictured Mycroft texting me hiding inside a bloody washroom stall."  
  
The corner of Sherlock's mouth lifted, but that was all, and John sobered. "What can we do?"  
  
"Try to identify our watchers. Give Mycroft time to remove his. Learn what we can about Mary. We can't trust MI6 to handle her case properly until Moriarty's moles are taken out, but we can't look like we're trying to find her, since we're under surveillance. We'll be walking a fine line, John. We shouldn't involve Lestrade's people--too dangerous for them." His eyes were both tender and fierce. "It'll be just you and me."  
  
"Just the two of us." John stood, went to him. "I trust this," he said; laid his hand on Sherlock's chest, above the heart; "and this," and let the other stroke slowly over the crown of Sherlock's head, through his soft curls. "I always have."  
  
Sherlock's eyes glimmered with something like the beginning of tears, but he was smiling too and all he said before he kissed him was, "I know."  
  
  
Now Sherlock is in the sitting room checking under and behind everything for hidden microphones, cameras, any unfamiliar tech. He was standing on a chair pulling out all the books in the upper shelves when John went to bed. He suspects he'll spend the next several hours running over everything he's ever known about Mary, searching for the things that could tell him where she'd go.  
  
Much later, he hears Sherlock's violin. The first chords of Mendelssohn's Lieder sing through the flat, fill the weary spaces in his mind, until John finally sleeps.  
  
He drifts into dreams, and finds Mary standing in the bright sunlight pouring through the windows of Baker Street, smiling shyly. She's holding the baby, wrapped in a pink and blue blanket. "Don't you want to see her, John?" she asks. Mary's eyes are on the tiny bundle. She's swaying, humming something lovely and a little sad as she watches it. Suddenly he realizes he's missed the birth completely. An awful jolt of guilt goes through him; they'd needed him, and he hadn't been there. Where had he gone? He pulls the blanket aside, holding his breath, hoping that the baby has Sherlock's unearthly-lovely eyes. But the solid shape inside the blanket sinks away into empty air as the blanket falls back, and then John is stumbling backward, crying aloud, because it's soaked with blood and the smell of rotting things and when Mary looks up at him, her eyes are dark and shining. She walks toward him, humming, holding out the limp blanket. "You should hold the baby, John. She's crying for you."  
  
"John. John! Wake up. Please."  
  
A touch on his shoulder and he's rising suddenly into consciousness, the soft bed and the shadows of the room. He curls in on himself, gasping, and feels a large hand start to stroke his back, slowly, firmly. "John. You're here, you're safe."  
  
He drags in a breath, once, again, again, until his airways start to open and the smell of rot and blood in that blanket starts to clear. He rolls onto his back again, sees Sherlock bent over him, worried and earnest; says, "Oh, _fuck,"_ half-choking, and relaxes into the mattress.  
  
"What happened?"  
  
He shakes his head, embarrassed; sits up and tries to orient himself. Sherlock hesitates, then lowers himself down beside him on the bed. After a moment, he says, "After the pool, I dreamed about you being blown up. Leaving that place alone with your blood on my clothes. Every night for weeks."  
  
John sighs; takes one of Sherlock's hands out of his lap; winds his fingers through Sherlock's long, rough, beautiful ones. When he can speak steadily, he says, "I think the baby was dead. I think she killed it, Sherlock, and she was smiling at me--God!" He sags into him, finally, and Sherlock pulls him near. He lets himself shelter in the warmth of his arms.  
  
Finally John whispers, "You said that about her going somewhere to have it. I'm never going to see it, and I'll never know if it's safe."  
  
"I know," Sherlock whispers back. "That's what I was afraid of when I left you."  
  
  
When he finally goes out into the kitchen, he's emptied out, sore and light-headed. Sherlock's taking his turn in bed. He's left a lamp on in the sitting room; there are books and papers stacked everywhere, but no uncovered microphones or cameras on the table, only Sherlock's violin, the bow laid down beside it. John pulls his robe around himself tighter, goes yawning into the kitchen to fill the kettle for tea. He stands looking out into the moonlit street below, wondering who's watching. Wondering how he can go on feeling such relief and such loss together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone's curious about their code--they rehearse it every year on Mummy's birthday, just to keep it fresh in their minds, and they actually do get her whatever they talk about that year.
> 
> If they ask about Mummy's birthday gift--there's a life-and-death emergency that can't be addressed explicitly because of listening ears  
> If they suggest a poetry book--someone's being staked out by hostile agents.  
> (If they suggest chocolates, someone's being kidnapped; if it's tickets to a musical, someone's being poisoned; if it's a fruit basket, there's a bomb.)  
> If the poet recommended is Keats--Sherlock's the one at risk.  
> If it's Thomas Hardy--it's Mycroft.  
> (Emily Dickinson would mean John at risk; Shakespeare, Lestrade; Robert Frost would be Mrs. Hudson.)  
> If they mention a first edition--the danger of someone dying is immediate.  
> If they mention a new copy--there's time to learn more.  
> If Mycroft tells Sherlock he'll have Anthea handle the gift, it means he'll get his agents to help; if he says he needs Sherlock to get it, he needs him to handle it alone; if he explicitly tells Sherlock not to mention it to Anthea, MI6 has been compromised in the situation and they can't trust his agents. 
> 
> There's plenty more to it. For example, if one of them needs something from the other, they ask them to send flowers for Mummy--roses mean antitoxin, dahlias mean a handgun, violets mean antibiotics, tulips mean a communications device--and the colors mentioned tell them exactly what kind.
> 
> They made it up when Sherlock was in secondary and Mycroft was just entering MI6 at the ground level. It was funny then, but they've had to use it three times and it's worked perfectly.


	13. Chapter 13

He's holding his second coffee in both hands, elbows on the sill of the open kitchen window, when Sherlock's scandalized voice says behind him, "God, John, what are you _doing?_ It is _frigid_ in here."  
  
“Cold air keeps me awake,” John tells him. “Learned that at King’s, up studying for tests.” He turns, takes in Sherlock standing in the kitchen doorway; pajamas and bare feet, his sleep-spoiled curls sticking out everywhere, his lovely disgruntled expression. John catches his breath; feels both frightened and bold. “Good morning, beautiful.”  
  
Sherlock looks away quickly. “Quiet night?”  
  
“All clear,” John says, tenderness rising in his chest at Sherlock’s shy face. Of course, I should have known, he thinks. Since that first "amazing," that first day. He needs praise. “Sleep well, then?”  
  
“I dreamed of having chips and whiskey at the pub with the Americans,” Sherlock says, sounding faintly perplexed, and John laughs aloud.  
  
“Is that how it was that summer in Florida? Well, I don’t have any of that, but I made breakfast,” he says. “Toast and beans and sausage by the fire.” Sherlock’s brows rise; he goes into the living room, takes in the spread of coffee, food and nice plates set out on the table. John follows him. “I’ll join you.”  
  
"John," Sherlock murmurs. His ears have gone pink again. "What is this about?"  
  
"Thought you'd like something substantial after the long night," John says, surprised. He watches Sherlock sit down. Settles opposite him, and starts spreading berry jam across toast. "All right?"  
  
"Yes." Sherlock falls quiet again, but he takes quite a bit of food. They eat in silence.  
  
"What's on your mind?" John asks after a minute.  
  
"I just--well." Sherlock's not looking at him. "I didn't expect you to be like this with me."  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"Making breakfast." He looks at John through his lashes. "Calling me beautiful."

"But you like it." He'd been a little nervous, cooking the food, wondering if it would be scoffed at and dismissed. They do have a case on, a very urgent one.  
  
"I--it's strange for me, but yes, I like it." Sherlock wipes his mouth and sits back. "I was very jealous of your girlfriends, John."  
  
"Is that why you made fun of them?" John sits back too; can't help smiling.  
  
"Yes, and why I laughed at the emails you wrote them. They were--actually rather sweet." Sherlock's eyes are fixed on the floor. John remembers Sherlock saying quietly, "But then, he's a romantic," during his absurdly lovely speech.  
  
_"You're_ rather sweet," John tells him, and is pleased by the surprised smile he gets in return. He'd never thought he'd talk to Sherlock like this. But then he'd never thought Sherlock would be like this at all. He adds, "I was very jealous of your girlfriends, too."  
  
"Who?" Sherlock looks startled.  
  
"Janine and Irene. I couldn't stand them. It drove me mental, thinking they had something worth your time that I couldn't figure out."  
  
"You do realize that neither of them was actually my girlfriend." Sherlock's voice is turning amused.  
  
"Well, sort of, yes."  
  
"No, definitely, yes. I admired them, but what they had worth my time was information. I've only formed one--non-platonic bond, I suppose, before you, and that was a long time back. And not with a woman."  
  
"When was that?" He keeps his tone light. Sherlock's never said a word about his past before.  
  
"During my undergraduate studies. It only lasted a few months. I liked him quite a lot, but that--wasn't enough."  
  
"Who was he?"  
  
"A fellow student, one year above me. Victor Trevor." Sherlock takes a breath and John wonders how long it's been since he's said that name. "He enjoyed the way I thought, at first. He liked me. But I said the wrong things at the wrong time, observed too much about his family. I didn't think to censor myself. He was hurt, too hurt to continue our connection. I did not react well. I--overdosed, harmed myself. Mycroft's never really gotten over it." He looks away. "I thought I'd learned then that love wasn't compatible with my personality."  
  
"What do you think now?"  
  
"I think you'd be the best judge of now." He's not meeting John's eyes. He's still not sure of me, John thinks, with a rush of emotion. He doesn't know I couldn't possibly leave him. How can he not know? But John hasn't been sure, either, what Sherlock actually wants with him--if he'd meant to go on as they had been, taking cases and arguing over the groceries, only now with snogging in between; or if he'd warm up at all to John's sentimental side, his urge to write love notes and plan evening dates and make breakfast together in the mornings.  Now, looking at Sherlock's fingers tapping nervously on his leg, John feels like he's stepped onto firmer ground.

"I get to decide how we're doing? I need some more data. Kiss me and I'll let you know."  
  
_"John."_  
  
"No, really. Overall it seems you're rather unfairly good at loving me. You've got the late-night violin taken care of, the soppy cuddling, the idiotic grand gestures--you really need to stop sacrificing your life for mine, you know, but it is bloody romantic. I just need to know if you're still as good a kisser as you were yesterday, and then I can give you a comprehensive report on how fantastically compatible love and your personality are with me."  
  
"John!" Sherlock's blushing. It's fascinating. "You're ridiculous."  
  
"Thank you," John says, and decides he can't wait any longer. "You are, too, and I really like ridiculous, so I'm going to kiss you now."  
  
  
It's quite a while later, but still far too soon when Sherlock says into John's shoulder, "I need to go online. I have to research her. They've sent data," which presumably means the CIA, "and I stopped in the middle of reading it when I heard you shout, last night."  
  
John sighs, rubs his face against Sherlock's hair. "Yes. All right. But I'm not done with you."  
  
"Good." He smiles a little, pulls away from John, runs a hand over his curls, visibly shifting focus. "I'll let you know when I've got something. I need you to observe the passersby on Baker Street. Anyone loitering, any phone calls, anyone in a window, anyone who goes by more than once."  
  
"Got it," John says, and starts to gather the dishes for the sink.  
  
What follows are several of the strangest days John's ever passed. They take turns with the night watches, and John learns the things to avoid thinking about at four a.m. in the dark. When the sun comes up, he tracks the activity of the people in the apartments around theirs and the street below. He writes down everything he can ever remember Mary mentioning about her past, which isn't much. Sherlock backsearches everything the Agency's sent him about Mary's connections and aliases. He's chatting with people in foreign languages online at all hours, murmuring to himself as he tries to remember phrases in Dutch or Quebecois French or a half-dozen languages John had never guessed he spoke. He's stalking Mary's friends on Twitter and Facebook through John's accounts, looking for anything suspicious.

"A.G.R.A.," he says to John later that first day, "her initials--not one name; two. She was Ann Grant in the CIA. But she was Rachel Alstadt before that. Still not sure if that's actually her original name."  
  
"Rachel," John murmurs to himself, and he has to stand still for a few minutes. Somehow having another name for her makes it more real. She had another life. He tries to imagine her with innocent eyes, dark hair, a schoolgirl uniform. He's never thought to question if she was actually an orphan, or if there are parents, siblings, friends somewhere, wondering what's become of her. Missing her. It feels like a strange kind of secondhand grief.

They've been at it several days and he's more or less forgotten that ordinary life still exists, so it takes him by surprise entirely when Harry calls. He lets it ring five times, trying to think what on earth he can say, before he picks up. "John," she says, without preamble, "where the hell is that baby?"  
  
"What?" He's lost his breath. It isn't possible that she could know.  
  
"Hasn't Mary passed her due date? A while ago? I'm getting impatient to meet this kid."  
  
He's speechless. It's like stepping backwards in time, going back into the space in his mind when _normal_ was his frighteningly quiet little flat with his pregnant wife and his job and his ever-present unacknowledged broken heart. "Harry," he manages. "Ah, she's--they're--not with me."  
  
Dead quiet on the line. Then, "Johnny, what happened?"  
  
He closes his eyes, tries to breathe. "She cheated. And she hit me." He's afraid of what she might say; rushes on. "She'd been getting more and more possessive. I left when I finally realized how bad it was. Should have seen it long before."  
  
"Oh, no. No." Harry's voice is rough and quiet. "You did all right. You and I have some fucked up circuits in the 'what love looks like' bit of our brains. You figured it out. You left. That was really fucking brave, Johnny."  
  
Sherlock's watching him cautiously now and he buries his face in his hand, afraid of his expression. "But I left the baby, Harry. I can't believe I left the baby with her."  
  
"All right, listen to me. You had to make sure you were okay before you could help the kid. You did what you had to. Where are you now? Got a motel room?"  
  
"No, I'm at the flat. At Baker Street."  
  
"Oh. Ohhhh." Harry trails off. John closes his eyes.  
  
"Yes, Harry."  
  
"Yes? You're--you and him--"  
  
"Yes. I didn't expect it, I really didn't, I just--wanted to go home."  
  
"Oh," she says again, but now there's something like joy in her voice. "Johnny? This might be awful for me to say but--oh, God, I'm so happy right now. You don't even know."  
  
He rubs a hand over his face and laughs. "Ah, well, I'm happy too. So. You can say it if you want. I'm really, really sad but I'm also ridiculously relieved."  
  
"I know. John. This is it--I know it is."  
  
"Thank you." He hadn't known it would feel like that to hear her say so. "Harry, I--that means a lot to me."  
  
"Took you both long enough."  
  
"All right, that's enough. You did tell me, didn't you. Always have to be right." Whenever he talks to Harry, he wants to groan aloud, and he wants to hug her.  
  
"So. Can I come down and see you?"  
  
"Uh, let me check." He covers the phone with his hand, hisses, "She wants to come down. What do I tell her?"  
  
A little smirk appears in the corner of Sherlock's mouth. "Tell her we need a bit of time to ourselves," he suggests _, sotto voce._ "She'll like that."  
  
Heat rushes over his face and he has to clear his throat before he tells her, "Sherlock wants a bit more time to ourselves first. But I want to see you soon, okay?"  
  
"Okay. And I'm really sorry you had to leave her. But if that's how it was, then good for you. You did right."  
  
"Thank you." He's nearly whispering. His emotions are far too close to the surface for comfort these days. "Love you, Harry."  
  
"Love you, Johnny."  
  
As soon as he rings off Sherlock's taking the phone away and sliding his arms around him, and John rests his head on his worn tee shirt above his beating heart and takes slow, deep breaths, and feels him sway just slightly to some silent song, holding John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read the the first work in this series, The Two Of Us, for more of Sherlock's backstory from Mycroft's POV.


	14. Chapter 14

"John."

"Hm?" John looks over at Sherlock, leaning on the kitchen sill, from the sinkful of suds he's elbows-deep in. Sherlock's been alternately studying the street below and scrolling through the shots John's taken of loiterers and repeat passers over the last week.

"I believe I've identified our watchers," Sherlock says, turning. There's a glint of triumph in his expression. "We've got three."

"Oh, great." John dries his hands on a towel, comes over to see what he's been looking at. "Between you, me and Mrs. Hudson, we can definitely take them."

Sherlock ignores that; holds the phone out for John. "You've captured photographs of two of them--the silver-haired woman watching our house from Speedy's, the younger man in glasses texting on the stoop across the street. I believe they, plus the third, are all staying in one flat in 218. I've seen them several times; observed an unusual level of covert attention directed by them toward 221, as well as clear effort on their parts to be unremarkable; their phones are cheap but new; their clothes are all new, without individuality, bland items meant to blend in; they never have friends over, they don't speak to the neighbors and no one stops to speak to them. The last agent is more cautious, but I've seen her watching us at least five times from the window of the flat. Obviously I can't do a facial recognition check with Mycroft now. I can't even confirm their identities with the Americans, since they would likely share the information with MI6, alerting Moriarty's people. All we can do is stay aware of them. Do you have your gun?"

"In my waistband or on the bedside table since this started." John pockets his mobile, offers Sherlock a smile. "We'll be ready."

"Yes, we will." He gives a half-smile in return, but his eyes are far away. He turns into the sitting room and picks up his laptop; settles down at the table with it. John follows him, rests a hand on his shoulder and looks at the screen. He's got John's Facebook and Twitter feeds up. "I don't have any indication of Mary's location yet. Based off of the information the CIA passed along, I've not matched any current friends of hers with any previous contacts. She seems to have made a clean break when she took her current identity. I've been tracking the social media presence of her bridesmaids, your coworkers, and David, but no one has shown any indication of unusual activity, unexpected travel or extended periods of silence, so she's most likely on her own right now, unless she's resurrected a resource from her past."

"Or unless she's already dead," John says, and feels Sherlock tense under his hand.

"Yes," he says quietly, after a moment. "Or that." He turns to study John's face.

"I'm all right," John says. "I don't like it, but I'm all right. It's almost--" He stops. "It would almost be a relief to know. I don't wish her dead, but I hate waiting, not knowing whether she'll come for you."

"For us." Sherlock's voice has gained an edge.

"I suppose. I'm not worrying for myself."

"I'll do that for you," Sherlock says, and turns back to the screen. John thinks that over; rests his hands on Sherlock's shoulders, smooths them slowly, until he feels him relax a little.

"We need to get some groceries," he says finally. "Or we won't be eating in the morning. Surprised we lasted this long."

Sherlock sighs. "You do it," he says. "I have to keep working."

"I'm not leaving you here," John says, and is taken aback by the sharpness that's come into his voice.

Sherlock turns to look at him again. "Well, we can't both go. Someone needs to stay here and make sure nobody comes in to wait for us, or bug our laptops, or poison the teakettle."

"The kettle. Moriarty's resurrected ghost has put agents on our own sodding street, watching us, just waiting for me to leave you here alone, and you want to stay behind and keep an eye on the bloody teakettle? God." He shakes his head. "You know what? I'm too tired for this shite." The four a.m. watches, the dreams, the constant awareness of being under Moriarty's eye, again, like thinking he's awake at last, only to find himself buried deeper in the nightmare; the fact that his entire life just got blown clear through--he feels like a bruised nerve. Adrenaline's pouring through him, now, his whole body beginning to thrum. "I'm not doing this again." He shakes his head again, fighting rising dizziness.

"Not doing what?" Sherlock's voice is bizarrely calm. He has a tiny little frown that says, Dear God, John's losing it, and John tries to slow down his breathing and realizes that he is in fact about to lose it spectacularly.

"I'm not leaving you again! Not like this! Not right now, not ever, not while we're right back in the middle of hell, Sherlock! Not when you could die. I'm not going to find out you were murdered in our front room while I was out buying eggs, I'm not _losing_ you again, I'm not, I'm not--" and he can't breathe, and he can't see past the broken star of blood on the pavement in his mind, the feel of Sherlock's still wrist sliding out of his hand, the wide blue eyes looking at nothing.

"John." Sherlock's holding his arms. They're on the floor. "John." His grip is sure, but his voice shakes on the word. John's vision clears slowly, darkness slipping away into the light of the room. He's kneeling, braced on his hands, Sherlock crouched beside him. It's been so long since he lost contact with his own body so completely.

"You left me here," John says. It comes out in a whisper. Sherlock doesn't answer, and John curls in on himself. He'd nearly forgotten how this felt, and now he's shivering on the ground without a chance in hell of saving his dignity or doing anything but letting the freezing grief roar through his bones until it's done with him. "God fucking damn it," he says through clenched teeth, and gives in.

When the tears ease up a bit, and he can see again, he realizes finally that Sherlock's still there on the floor beside him, unmoving. He scrubs his sleeve over his wet face and turns. Sherlock's head is in his hands. He doesn't look up.

"Sherlock?"

Silence. John's hands have steadied. He reaches out, carefully, touches Sherlock's knee.

"Sherlock, are you--there?"

Sherlock raises his head and looks at John and oh, his awful eyes. John tries and fails to find his voice. Reaches to cup Sherlock's cheek and he flinches away minutely. Carefully, John rests his hand on Sherlock's leg instead; feels the fine tremors running through him. He wants to help him, but he can't. His own sorrow is still just under his skin.

Finally, Sherlock says tonelessly, "I didn't know."

"How?" He can barely speak. "How could you not know? You were everything, Sherlock. All I had. From the very first day."

He blinks. "But that was you. That was what you were."

He's stunned. "You never said." He thinks of Sherlock's cold look as he'd left Bart's lab, furious, terrified for Mrs. Hudson. Looks into his torn-wide-open gaze. "You sent me away."

"To keep you _safe."_

"I almost didn't survive having been kept safe, Sherlock." He never thought he'd find words for this. He hadn't known it was all still there, just underneath. Sherlock's head drops again.

Silence in the flat, but Sherlock's here. Alive, in front of him, shaking with John's pain.

In the stillness, John takes both his hands and says, "But I did."

"What?"

"I did survive. And you came back."

Sherlock gives a broken laugh. "Too late."

"Did you come as soon as you could?" The weight of the question forces the air from John's lungs, and he waits while Sherlock struggles with it.

"Yes," he whispers, finally, and something hard and cold that's been there for years breaks open deep inside John, letting warmth in, and he pulls Sherlock in to himself; holds on tight, feeling him slowly come back together in his arms.

"All right," he murmurs into his ear; rests his cheek against Sherlock's and breathes with him. "All right."

 

Hours later, Sherlock wakes him in bed where he's gone to get some kip, and says, "Mycroft sent us these." John blinks at the little plastic bag in his hand. It holds two buttons, one black, one white. He clears his throat.

"Ah, why?"

Sherlock smiles slightly. Opens the bag and holds the white one out. "We'll sew them on our shirts. If you press yours, it calls my phone. If I press mine, it calls yours. They each contain a microphone which will transmit whatever is occurring in the immediate vicinity."

"And we'll wear them when we're separated." John sits up, takes the button. "Like a superspy version of that 'I've fallen and I can't get up' gadget."

Sherlock laughs, surprised, and his eyes lighten a little. "Yes, exactly. If there's an emergency, this will be far more discreet then attempting to use our mobiles."

John studies him. "This is because of earlier."

"Yes."

"You asked Mycroft for these for my sake. To help me."

"Yes. And because you're right, separation is dangerous now." Lower, not looking at John, "I don't like it either."

He's quiet while John thinks about it. Then John says, "Thank you," and relief does something to Sherlock's mouth which requires John to kiss it, pull him down beside him on the bed, and hold him until he lets go a burst of warm breath and relaxes into him; gets his arms around him and lays his head on John's chest. All John can see are fine, dark, soft curls resting just under his chin, unmoving, and he presses a kiss into them, too. "I'm still bothered," he says, after a minute, "but this does make it better," and Sherlock sighs softly into his shirt; lets John slide a hand up his back, stroke his forgiveness into his skin. One more miracle.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: emotional/mental abuse

In the end, the call comes, of all times, when he's having a quiet lunch with Harry.  
  
He's gone to town for food and toilet paper while Sherlock searches the police reports of every village and hamlet in England, looking for word of an abandoned baby. ( _Please, God, no,_ John thought, but didn't say.) He's headed for the till with the groceries when a familiar voice says, "John!" and it's Harry.  
  
"Hey," he answers, with an unexpected surge of pride. She looks good. Head up, warm smile. He says, "You're dressed up. Nice jacket. What are you doing in town?"  
  
"Thanks." She grins. "I had an internet date. Foxy lady. Very appreciative of a good leather jacket. Is it all right if I wait with you?"  
  
"Yeah, sure," John says, and then takes a breath. "Actually, we've got something on, and it's a bit dangerous. You should probably give me some space at the moment."  
  
Harry gives him a long look; scrubs a hand through her hair and says, "Would me sticking around make things more or less dangerous for you?"  
  
"For me? Less, I suppose. If anybody's tailing me, they'll see me out with you and think, Ah, he's taken the day off. Unless they decide you're involved somehow."  
  
"That's a risk I'll run. Have lunch with me?"  
  
"I really shouldn't." But he wants to. He's hungry, he's worn out. It's been so long since she looked this settled. And Sherlock had looked like he'd be hours yet on the reports; there's really nothing for John to do at home. He's been doing a bit better about giving him space, letting himself breathe a little. This is the third time he's been out alone. He touches his button absentmindedly.  
  
"Just one hour."  
  
He looks at her eager face. It's like looking in the mirror. Short, pure silver hair (when had that happened?), falling over her forehead rather than combed back like John's; Dad's sea-blue eyes beneath, smiling. He really is hungry. He sighs. "All right."  
  
  
Mercifully, she asks him nothing; tells him about the date ("Definitely calling that girl up again. God, John, she's a saxophonist; do you know how hot that is?"), about her latest Jiu-Jitsu competition, about the pretty little flat she's just signed for; she's got photos on her phone. They're finishing their plates of curry when his mobile rings. Unknown number. His heart gives a jolt. He picks up. "Hello?"  
  
Silence. Slow, steady breathing, then, a bit muted, "All right, we're going to have to try a different tack, then," and oh, God, it's her voice, and Sherlock's used the hidden call button, so he's in real trouble; and right after the wave of cold fear comes a rush of pure possessive rage. _He's mine. You don't get to hurt him._  
  
"Harry, I have to go."  
  
"Something wrong?"  
  
"Yeah." He's tossed a couple of bills on the table, got his coat on and he's moving for the door, not quite running. There's silence over the phone now except for an occasional grunt of discomfort or (God, no) pain. Harry's right behind him.  
  
"I'm coming."  
  
"The hell you are!" They make it out onto the sidewalk. He throws up his hand for a cab.  
  
"No, I am. You know I can help."  
  
The trouble is, she's right. She's strong. She can fight. Having one more person along might mean this time Sherlock makes it out. And John hasn't got many options. They thought Mycroft would have dealt with his people before it came to this. "It's Moriarty, Harry. Do you really want to do this?"  
  
"How the hell is it Moriarty? He died! I thought those videos were a stunt!"  
  
"Never mind that. Do you want to?"  
  
"Do you need me?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Never wanted anything more, then."  
  
He turns and looks at her. Harry Watson, blazing with life, with a look in her eye he saw a hundred times when she was a child facing down Mum, the principal, the girls at school; that he's not seen in years. A look that says, I'm here, and I stay, and I will not be denied.  
  
He feels himself calm, just a little bit. "All right." A cab pulls over. Harry's eyes are bright. She nods and he says, "Baker Street. Quickly--please."  
  
Ten minutes with this traffic, he thinks, and tries to imagine what's waiting. He's heard no one but Mary. Where are the other agents? How has she subdued him? Is he even fully conscious? He can't call Mycroft--alert the rest of Moriarty's people and they'd be done for. Why hadn't he asked Sherlock for an American contact?  
  
Suddenly Mary's talking again, sounding almost bored. He knows that tone. It's a dangerous calm. "You were supposed to go after me yourself, you know, or let me go. You weren't supposed to start a transatlantic manhunt. Why call the Americans? You know you've made me a target. I'd have thought John at least would have said no to that, for sentiment's sake."  
  
There's  a short hiss of pain, and then Sherlock's deep, detached voice, the one he uses with dangerous people. "I think you may have outworn even his extensive capacity for sentiment."  
  
She laughs. "He's certainly outworn mine. Leaving me for you, after everything you put him through. You should have seen him when I got him. He was in pieces. I made him better, and you took him from me."  
  
"He wasn't yours, Mary. He belongs to himself. I didn't take anything. He chose me because you--ah!" Sherlock's voice breaks off sharply.  
  
"John?" Harry says quietly, and he blinks back the tears he hadn't noticed.  
  
"Mary's with Sherlock, and she's hurting him," he says. "She's got him pinned somehow." Harry takes a sharp breath, and nods. "Also, she's a spy."  
  
There's a very long silence, then, "Police?"  
  
"Can't. Moriarty's got agents watching us, and I don't want Greg and Sally on his list."  
  
"You're fucking kidding me," Harry whispers and subsides.  
  
"I assume John will be joining us soon," Mary says. "I'm sure you're aware of our people in 218; they'll get him ready for me. I'm guessing you'll be much quicker with the information when he's the one I'm paying attention to. Or you could just tell me. I'll ask again. What do you know about Moriarty? And me? And who have you told?"  
  
There's another hiss of breath from near the microphone. John's hand is starting to tremble; he clenches and stretches it until Harry takes it suddenly and holds on tight.  
  
Sherlock's voice sounds slightly strained. "People are watching, Mary. You can't do this for long. You'll have to step it up."  
  
"You mean Mycroft's people?" It sounds like she's smiling. "Those are my men watching the feed at MI6. They're the eyes on your flat. They won't tell a soul. No one's coming, Sherlock. No one but John." A pause, then, "Even if you'd lived, you'd have lost him. You're not what he really wants--not anymore."  
  
John's hand curls tight around the phone.  
  
"He's been used and abused all his life. People like him don't want romance; it scares them. They want to be owned. The army was perfect for a man like him; put him in his place, give him orders, make him dance, and he felt right at home. He worshiped the ground James walked on--commanding officers make for the perfect hopeless obsession. And then all that was ripped away from him and there he was, abandoned. Free. The last thing in the world he wanted."

John lets out a slow breath.  
  
"So you came along. You're right, he likes people like you and me--dangerous. Demanding. You took him right over and he disappeared into you, Sherlock. He didn't know who he was without you. It wasn't that he really wanted to be your lover. He hates the fact that he loves men, he doesn't want to be gay, but you were untouchable; you were completely unromantic; you never tried to kiss him, you just wanted to possess him, and that was all it took; he was yours. And that's why you'd have lost him if I let you live."

"Oh my God," John says aloud. "She never knew me at all."  
  
Harry's hand tightens around his and he drops his head into his hand while he listens. "Because you're not like that anymore. Right now, you remind him of the man you were--the great detective, the dangerous man; and he's looking for someone like that. If you hadn't been there, he'd have come right back to me for more; he doesn't know who he is without a handler. If you survived, once this case was over and the excitement faded and he saw, really saw who you are now, he'd get the hell away from your kindness. Your meekness. You're weak, now. Sentimental. You'll let your feelings for him get in the way of the work; you don't make use of him the way you could; you're distracted. You couldn't even find me; you were busy making a mess of yourself over him here at the flat, because you're ordinary now. You're just a man in love. He saw that right away when you came back. So he let you plan our wedding and teach him how to dance and show him how you loved him, and then he married me. I own him. I'm what he wants, Sherlock."  
  
She stops. John's breathing hard. I loved her once, he thinks, horrified. I loved her.  
  
He waits for Sherlock's sarcasm, his effortless mockery. Waits for him to tear her up. Rip to shreds the utter shite she's talking. But the silence stretches on, and suddenly John's heart is beating faster.  
  
They're only five blocks from Baker Street, but the traffic is a mess. He leans forward, toward the cabbie. "We're getting out, thanks," he says, and then he's running toward home, with Harry behind him.


	16. Chapter 16

"Round the back," he gasps to Harry as they tear around the corner onto the last block. He slows his pace deliberately, aware of the chance of eyes on them. "Mary said there'd be people waiting for me. Maybe if we go through the alley, they'll miss us." They duck down the back way. It's a strange feeling, coming up to home the wrong way round, like getting a glimpse into a secret world. He recognizes the back fence; catches Harry by the arm and puts a finger on his lips; slides his phone in his pocket, without hanging up. There's been quiet for the last few minutes, broken by small unwilling sounds from Sherlock and Mary's repeated questions, her voice growing more irritated each time. John stares at the upper windows of 221. No movement. He can't help but wonder what Sherlock expects him to do. Maybe he ought to have tried Mycroft. He pulls out his mobile again; tries to think. Finally he texts, _I don't know how this works, but there's a problem with your mum's birthday present. Need your help._  
  
It's far too easy to get up on a bin and look into the yard. They'll have to move those, later. He gets just his eyes above the level of the boards. Mrs. Hudson's laundry hangs limp on the line, and there's a rabbit chewing its way slowly through her cucumber patch, and one pale, tired-looking young agent sitting on the back stoop, staring directly at John.  
  
He brings his Browning up to aim over the fence and the agent matches the motion instantly. John takes a good look at the gun pointed directly at his head, the boy's steady hands; takes a deep breath.  
  
"We've got one," he says to Harry, without taking his eyes off of the kid, and slowly, deliberately pulls himself up and over the fence.  
  
Unnervingly, the boy's stance relaxes as John drops down and lands in a crouch in the back garden. He even starts to lower his gun. John keeps his steady as he hears Harry land behind him, and the agent's aim swings to cover her. He scans them both, looking confused.  
  
"You're John Watson," he says, just above a whisper. "Who's that?"  
  
"Never mind her," John growls. "Where's your partners?"  
  
"They're taking in the bunch from across the street. We picked up a lot of chatter between them about you. Thought it would be better if they were out of the way when you arrived and we came back in to pick her up. The team will be back with reinforcements in a bit if everything's gone okay. Again, who's she?" His eyes flick over Harry and return to John, narrowed. "She looks a _lot_ like you."  
  
The truth's dawning on him now. "That's an American accent. You're CIA. You eliminated the sodding spies in 218." His body floods with relief; he almost laughs aloud.  
  
The kid raises his eyebrows, nods. "And that's your sister?" John nods, and he drops the gun to his side and rolls his eyes. "What the fuck are you doing bringing her along? This is serious. I heard you two were insane, but you could leave the civilians out of it."  
  
Slowly, John lowers his weapon too. "Hey, I'm a civilian. And she's not your business. What are you doing here?"  
  
"We've been watching you, obviously. Mycroft asked us to keep an eye on you."  
  
"I thought he was keeping his investigation within MI6."  
  
"Well, there's been some collaboration. They know we're here. But it wasn't an official request. It was personal, between him and my boss. They go back. And we thought it could be a good way to get ahold of her." He jerks his head toward the upstairs. "We've called MI6 now; my people are headed to rendezvous with them, hand off the hostiles."

"Oh, God." John closes his eyes for a moment. "Who did they talk to?"

"I don't know. Someone at headquarters. Why?"

"For God's sake!" He hisses it, but he wants to shout, to hit something. Was it Moriarty's moles who took the call? "Why wait? Why didn't you just go in?" He knows he's using his army voice now when he sees the boy stand straighter. "What's the situation up there?"  
  
"We don't have eyes inside the flat, but from what I know, she's waiting for you, which buys us time till my team gets back. I wouldn't go in alone. We can't afford to lose her again."  
  
"If you know anything about me, you won't try to stop me." John turns to Harry. "Stay with him, yeah? Keep an eye on him, make sure he is what he says he is. If he gives you any trouble, bring him on in. If I run into problems up there, I'll shout, but we have no idea who's coming or when and I'm not going to wait." Harry's wide-eyed, but she nods. "I'm going to help Sherlock."  
  
He ducks quickly through Mrs. Hudson's kitchen and out into the entry; makes his way up the front stairs slowly, gun at the ready, stepping on the sides of the stairs, around the squeaky spots. She won't kill me, he thinks. Not right away. She'll want to hurt me so he'll talk. And she'll want to shame me for leaving her.  
  
He eases open the door into the flat, scans the front room, and catches his breath. Of all things. There's Janine, sitting sideways in his chair, long legs draped over the arm. Her hair's cropped short, and she's in glasses, but it's definitely Janine.

His first feeling is a rush of nauseating jealousy. Apparently there's still some left over from the last time he saw her. Then shock sets in. "Janine," he says. "What the hell?"  
  
She frowns, sits up. "Hi, John. You're supposed to have come with company."  
  
He's having trouble understanding. "Sherlock checked you and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. _You're_ with Mary?"  
  
"Clearly, love. And I wouldn't leave anything for him to find. What did you do with our people?"  
  
"Handled them," John says, a bit breathless. _Janine._ And she'd been with Sherlock. She'd called Mycroft "Myc." She'd kissed him, here in the flat. How had she dared?  
  
"'Handled them.' You? By yourself?" She's looking him up and down in a way that's frankly insulting.  
  
"Obviously," he snaps. "Shall we?" He gestures with his gun in the direction of the rest of the hall. No sign of Sherlock and Mary, so they must be in one of the bedrooms, which makes the invasion, the violation, that much deeper. Janine. Had Sherlock seen her?  
  
"All right." She pulls a little handgun out of a bag on the floor. "I'm sure you understand, darling," is all she says as she stands and aims.

"For God's sake, can we drop the pet names?" He begins to back down the worryingly quiet hallway, keeping his gun aimed at her chest, and she follows, hers held perfectly steady as she walks, carelessly alert, and it begins to sink in that she really is dangerous.  
  
She's smiling when he reaches the bedroom door.

 

He'd thought of curtains drawn, the room in shadows, Mary in black, crouched and ready to defend herself. But the lamp's on, making the room look homey and snug, and she's sitting crosslegged on the bed beside Sherlock with a bloodstained knife in her hand.

Sherlock. Bolt upright, but swaying. Gray-faced and sweating. "Oh," John murmurs, taking him in, the weariness in his face; his naked, vulnerable chest, stripped of his shirt; there's blood on his back, but it's hard to get a good look because Mary's between them and his arms are wrenched behind him, tied up tight to the frame of the bed. His eyes drift to John and open a little wider.

John turns his gun on them, and Mary's knife is suddenly at the pulse point in Sherlock's soft throat and she says, simply, "Don't." He wavers.

"Where's the others?" she asks, and Janine pushes through the doorway behind him.

"He says he took care of them. I think he's lying."

"All right, but then where are they?"

"I'll check in." She pulls out her mobile, keeping her gun trained on John.

"You," says Sherlock softly. "You're her partner?"

"She's my partner. Right, babe?" Mary's voice is dry and quiet, ordinary. Sherlock's eyes are flicking back and forth between them but he looks unfocused, confused.

"'Babe'?" John says sharply, just as Sherlock's eyebrows rise.

"Partner, or partner?" he asks.

"Yes." Mary smiles, the sweet smile he remembers. "You miss a lot when you're emotional. Why'd she let you in to the office that night, when she knew we were upstairs? Why'd she say yes to the ring in the first place, when you wouldn't even fuck her? You were meant to die that night, and we'd have left, but you did us one better by surviving. Between the cash from the stories, and you kindly getting rid of Magnussen, you set us up for the perfect fresh start. It would have been quick and clean. You'd have gone to Serbia. I'd have had the baby, staged an accident, left John to mourn us innocently. Left him out of it all. And then Mycroft had to call you back and send you after Moriarty. Now he needs to know what you know, and who you've told, and he won't let me go until I've settled this." She turns to John. "I never meant it to last this long. I told Sherlock I'd kill him before you got here if he'd just talk, so he wouldn't have to see what happened next."

"How could I refuse an offer like that?" Sherlock murmurs, with a flicker of humor at last, but it's all wrong; his voice is vague and his eyes hold none of the fierce light they should have.

"You drugged him," John says, astounded. "How'd you manage that?"

"I told you. He misses things when he's emotional," she says. "He was at Speedy's, getting a coffee. All I had to do was walk past him, into the flat. He followed me. I ran into Mrs. Hudson's, acted like I'd escape out the back. He chased me, pinned me down, and then it was easy enough to inject him with a little tranquilizer." She rolls her eyes, sighs. "Not much fun to wrestle a drugged man of his size, even with Janine's help. He kept collapsing on us. And then after we got him upstairs I had to waste time waiting for him to wake up enough to talk, and then he wouldn't cooperate. You picked an idiot, John, honestly. I'm really ready to be done with this." She's edging forward, now, and Janine gets up behind her on the bed, takes over holding the knife against Sherlock's neck, and Mary takes her gun and stands. "So we're changing tacks again. If you don't want him to suffer now, you'll stay still, John."

She moves slowly. Sherlock watches, motionless except for a periodic tremor in his twisted arms. When she stops, she's close enough that her warm breath moves over his cheek. He blinks, tries not to flinch as she sets the cool, hard tip of the gun against his temple and says, "Now, then. You know I'll kill him, Sherlock, and I'll do it slowly. If you don't want to watch him dying, tell me what you know."


	17. Chapter 17

"Mary," Janine says suddenly. "I can't raise the team. I've tried everyone on the ground."  
  
"MI6?" Mary's voice is sharp.  
  
"Everyone. Something's wrong. We need to finish this and go."  
  
"All right, then." There's a shift in Mary's tone; whatever margin of grace they had is gone. "Start talking, Sherlock."  
  
Sherlock gives John one long look. There's emotion there, however muddled by the drugs, and a silent question. Whatever he knows is all that's keeping us alive, John thinks. But then: Janine can't reach their team. I told Mycroft we need him. Something's happening at MI6 headquarters. The CIA swept 218. We're not alone in this anymore.  
  
If we're very, very lucky, help's coming soon.  
  
He gives Sherlock a tiny nod, and finally, something sparks in Sherlock's eyes. He lifts his head a little higher.  
  
"I know your name was Rachel Alstadt," he says, and John hears her quick intake of breath at the name. "And later, with the CIA, Ann Grant. I know you did wet jobs for them, and that they used you without regard for your security, because that's what they do to people like you; and that you left them because you could do better for yourself alone. I know you're North American, probably from the northeastern seaboard of the States. Your accent is very good but you trip up once in a few hundred words. I've not located your family, but I've talked with people who worked with you over four continents. I believe you are no longer in contact with anyone from your past. Janine may be your partner, but none of them know her; she's new."  
  
He sags forward slightly, breathes, then looks sideways at Janine, barely moving his head. The point of the knife is still resting just under his chin. He studies her, but still talks to Mary. "I know Magnussen put Janine through a lot. He must have known who she is. He told us he'd inflicted the kind of petty tortures on her that he used to humiliate John. I suspect Janine was working with him for your sake, waiting for the opportunity to eliminate him and the power he held over you. I believe your current organizational head allowed her to do so because he doesn't like people who interfere with his people, and Magnussen had sent you a threat--the telegram from C.A.M. at the wedding, yes?"  
  
He doesn't wait for an answer. "Janine came on to me after the ceremony, and again that evening, and verbally acknowledged my lack of interest. I assume she asked me out anyway to help you track me, kill me. She created your opportunity when she left out Magnussen's schedule for me to see--deliberately, I realize now; she'd have made up the nonexistent meeting that led me to believe he'd be gone, enabling our supposedly accidental encounter in Magnussen's office. I suppose she consented to being knocked out by you where he could see it--an excellent choice to keep him from the truth of your relationship, which he'd have suspected otherwise when he realized you knew his schedule. If I'd died then, as I was meant to, she could have finished him off at her leisure, cleared in his eyes of any connection to you, while he was focused on your threat. Unfortunately, I didn't die. Fortunately, I killed him. Unfortunately, I came back, and here we are." He looks toward Mary again. His eyes are finally focused and clear.

"I believe Janine is related to the Moriartys. I suspect that's the only reason your intimacy was tolerated; I don't imagine sexual congress was generally permitted between members of your group, given Jim's disgust for the effects of personal entanglement on my own mind." John realizes his mouth has dropped open when Sherlock gives him a glance and smiles slightly. "Don't be so surprised. Of course she's one of them; the Moriartys are exceptional actors. Remember Jim from I.T.? Richard Brook?" His gaze shifts back to Janine. "You have another relative at the top now, don't you? I was told something, a long time ago. The night I met John. 'Others out there just like you, but you're just a man, and they're so much more,' Hope said. 'A name no one says.' The Moriartys. The first note I received from a Moriarty was written by a woman. Maybe even you."  
  
In the ensuing quiet John's eyebrow begins to itch madly, and he bites his cheek to keep still. Sherlock's watching Mary, now, with his eyebrows raised.  
  
Finally, "Is that all?" she says.  
  
"All I know?" He laughs quietly, humorlessly. "Obviously not. There's loads more! Would you like to know the current Moriarty's likely motivations? Or Jim's? He had a thing for me. That was clear from the start. Or would you like to know what drove him to kill himself? Even I didn't see that coming, but it's so clear in retrospect. Shall I explain--"  
  
"Shut up!" Janine's nearly shouting. Her hand jerks slightly. Sherlock flinches as the knife pricks his throat, and suddenly it's obvious, Jim's madness in her eyes. Mary sighs.  
  
"That's enough," she says, and Sherlock's shoulder twitches as though he's attempting a shrug, but his arms are pulled back too tightly. They're tremoring continuously now. "I just need to know who you've told. And be honest with me, Sherlock. I know when you're lying."  
  
"I wouldn't lie to you," Sherlock says lightly, but his eyes are deadly. He's not going to go down without a fight, John thinks, and his fingers flex a tiny bit around his gun. He tries to tell him with a look, Ready when you are.  
  
Sherlock takes a breath, says, "I--" and then the room explodes into noise and light; the door's kicked in; sparkling shards of glass fly as the windows shatter under gunfire; a cloud of smoke rises to meet him as he drops to the floor, draws a breath to shout for Sherlock and gags on the burning air, breathless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jefferson Hope's quote taken from Ariane Devere's transcript of A Study in Pink at livejournal.com.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: emotional and physical violence
> 
> According to John's BBC-official blog, Sherlock did explain his two-year absence soon after he came back. So John has known already what he did and why. But I don't believe he knew all the details of what it was like.

Gasping, he rolls up onto his hands and knees, keeping his head low. Adrenaline gives everything happening around him a nightmarish soundless clarity. Mary's dropped to one knee, wavering--hit, but not dying. Dark smoke's still pouring into the air from two small canisters on the floor--smoke bombs (harmless, but he's still fighting for oxygen through bitter lungfuls of the stuff; buries his nose in his sleeve). They've surrounded Mary, and one of them's collapsed--she got off a shot. Then Janine crumples sideways and slides slowly off the bed, leaving a smear of startling red on the covers--also hit; someone's aim went wild.

 _Protect Sherlock._  
  
A few seconds have passed, and it's nearly over. He's off the ground in one movement; launches himself onto the bed to cover Sherlock, who's hunched and choking on the smoke; crouches over him as the strangers leave with Mary held tightly between them, silent, wild-eyed, jerking in their grip. Two agents drop out of the main group, one to lift their fallen member, one to drag Janine. Then they're in the hall. The door onto the landing opens, closes. Boots are audible, going down the stairs.  
  
The front door slams.  
  
It's quiet. The seconds stretch out without incident. Finally John lets out a soft sound he hadn't meant to make. Falls back onto the mattress. Sherlock's still half-choking, wincing with each movement of his shoulders and chest as he coughs, but the smoke's already drifting out, spent, through the shattered windows.  
  
"Were you hit?" John manages, through his smoke-dried throat. Sherlock shakes his head, breathes out slowly. John's army knife's in his pocket. He has it out in the space of a thought and is cutting through the cords that hold back Sherlock's arms. Gone. They're gone. It's finished.  
  
"Johnny?" he hears, and looks up to see Harry standing in the doorway.  
  
"Oh, my God, Harry. Are you all right?"  
  
"Me?" She looks offended. "I'm fine--you left me in the fucking back garden to chat up the kid. Are you all right?"  
  
"Fine." He laughs, incredulous, astounded. "We're fine." With a jerk, his knife goes through and the cords come free of the bedframe, and Sherlock collapses forward into John's chest with the release; groans into his shirt, a short, unwilling sound. John catches his breath; Sherlock's back is sliced to bleeding pieces.  
  
"He doesn't look fine," Harry says, and then says, "Oh, " and John looks up to see Mycroft standing behind her in the door. His expression goes soft and empty as he takes in Sherlock, lying limp against John and covered in blood.  
  
"John?" he says.  
  
He hadn't known Mycroft could sound so unsure. "He's alive, he's all right," he answers, and the muscles of Mycroft's face quiver and relax. Sherlock pushes away from John; sits back on the bed with his head hanging down. His arms are still trembling.  
  
When Mycroft speaks again his voice is calm, removed. "When you requested my assistance, I recognized we needed someone else on surveillance. I hadn't known till then what was occurring here. Since you were already in crisis, we had no further reason to fear initiating one by removing our double agents. We're no longer compromised. Where are Mary and Janine?"  
  
"They took them. Janine's dead, I think."  
  
"Who took them?"  
  
"The CIA. The agents you sent to watch us?" He looks from Mycroft to Harry, who's shaking her head. "Harry?"  
  
"No, they weren't," she says, and everyone looks at her. Even Sherlock lifts his head.  
  
"Why'd you bring Harry?" he says, in a tone that conveys that the world had gone mad.  
  
"She insisted," John says. "I forget you don't know her. What do you mean, they weren't?"  
  
"It was just odd," she says. "The kid wasn't that professional. He seemed really bitter about Mary, when I talked to him. You were the one who suggested the CIA, when you realized he was American, and then he came up with that story about Mycroft asking them personally to watch you. I think you gave him the idea. I used to be a pretty good liar, I know how to spot one. Since he lied, you didn't interfere; you let him wait for his team. And the way they came in here, like they didn't care what happened to you two--that was all wrong. Either of you could have been shot. No good if they meant to protect you. I was right behind, and no one minded me."  
  
"You're quite right," Mycroft says. "I never requested a security detail from the Americans. This is your sister, John?"  
  
"Yes, and you'll bloody well leave her alone," John says, but can't manage to make his tone sharp.  
  
"He brought you into this?" Mycroft says to Harry.  
  
"I brought myself. Thought I might help."  
  
"She teaches self-defense," John puts in. "Black belt in jiu-jitsu."  
  
"Indeed." Mycroft gives her a contemplative look. "Could you identify the kid, as you call him, on sight?"  
  
"Yes. Sir."  
  
Mycroft's face does something interesting. Didn't expect a "Sir" from a Watson, John thinks. "So who was that, then?" he asks.  
  
"I'd say Mary's past has caught up to her," Mycroft says blandly.  
  
Sherlock puts in, without raising his head, "Not Moriarty's men; they'd have killed John and I, and probably Harry as well. So, an old enemy--no one who'd worry about whether we lived or died, only about getting their hands on her."  
  
"Precisely." Mycroft raises his brows at Harry. "Come with me. I'll need your help with surveillance-based identification, if you can recognize them. I'd let them have her, but she knows things we need to know."  
  
"All right," Harry says, startlingly calm. "If you're really okay, John? I knew your life was a bit mad, but--wow."  
  
"I'm really okay," John says. "Go find them. But Mycroft? You will not recruit my sister to MI-6. She's going to stay normal, all right?"  
  
"Understood," Mycroft says, with the barest smile. "I will let you know when there are further developments, but I am quite confident you will not encounter Mary again unless you wish to. Either they will dispose of her, or we'll have her shortly. In the meantime, I believe Sherlock needs medical attention."  
  
John nods; watches Harry walk out the door of Sherlock's room with Mycroft Holmes.  
  
"God," he mutters, because this day can't get more bizarre. He turns to Sherlock. The trembling in his arms has stopped and he's rubbing them, presumably to bring back the circulation, which must hurt like hell; but his movements are smooth and his face is blank.  
  
"Well," John says, and stops. He's not been this unsure of himself around Sherlock since the month after his wedding, when he met Shezza. "Are you all right?"  
  
"Yes." Sherlock looks up; smiles slightly. Keeps rubbing.  
  
He takes a breath, tries, "The button worked. Had you been with her long when you called me?"  
  
Sherlock's movement jerks slightly, then resumes. "No. I did it as soon as my mind was clear enough."  
  
"The first thing I heard was her saying she'd try a different tack. Had she--hurt you already?"  
  
"Yes, a bit." His voice is pure calm. "I believe she thought she could get more from me when I was just returning to full consciousness. Obviously she did not."  
  
"God. Waking up to that." John moves a little closer. "I ought to have been here."  
  
Sherlock finally stops and looks at John. Something sparks in his eyes--kindness. "No. We survived because you were not. She had to wait for your arrival to put any real pressure on me, which gave her enemies time to find her."  
  
"Yes, but if I'd been here I'd have stopped her before she ever got to pressure you. Speaking of which, what has she done to your back?"  
  
"Not much, really. She's not a good interrogator; she's too petty." Sherlock's tone is going up. "I'll take care of it."  
  
"I swear to God, Sherlock. I'm a doctor. Let me do this, at least."  
  
Sherlock blinks several times. "All right." His face settles into a careful neutrality, and his body goes loose. John gets the first aid kit out of the bedside table and crawls around to the back of him, settles down on the bed to look.  
  
He's seen the scars before, when Sherlock was recovering. After Mary shot him. He'd had to help Sherlock with dressing for the first few days home, to his intense embarrassment, made far worse by the fact that his wife had done it, and that Sherlock wouldn't talk about it. And then to see his back--he'd tried to warn John, had said, "There are marks," in a quiet voice as John helped him off with his things before a shower, but John hadn't been ready; had stopped in the middle of pulling off Sherlock's shirt and stood speechless, looking, until Sherlock said, "John," in a voice full of so much exhaustion and pain and please-do-not that John had swallowed and gone back to undressing him without saying a word. He'd wanted badly to ask, but he'd already been informed in clear terms that he'd made his choice and it was Mary, that she was what he liked, and Sherlock was not going to let him forget it; and he was feeling rather as though he didn't belong there any more, in the middle of Sherlock's privacy. So he'd sat silently, painfully reading the same three paragraphs in the paper that evening, until finally Sherlock had said, "For God's sake!" and sat up on the sofa to announce, "I was captured in Eastern Europe, not long before I came back. They tried to get information from me by means of brute mistreatment; they were not successful. Mycroft intervened, and I returned home safely. Understood?" and John had nodded and cursed the tears building in his eyes, until he'd heard Sherlock's sudden, soft, "Oh." Then he'd said, "It's all right, John, it's done, it doesn't hurt me now," and looked at him with such speechless fondness that John found himself smiling, shakily, and Sherlock had smiled back.  
  
Things had been been much better between them after that.  
  
He's not taken off his shirt in front of John since, though, so John prepares himself to be professional and matter-of-fact, and looks down at Sherlock's back, and goes cold. Because she'd been holding that bloodstained knife, sitting beside Sherlock on the bed, his arms bound behind him so that he couldn't resist; and she's followed each scar precisely, each dip and seam, and delicately sliced them open again.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: panic attacks

"Oh," he whispers. "Oh, God."  
  
"John," Sherlock says. "Don't."  
  
He blows out a hard breath, shakes his head. He knows this. It was one of the first things he learned when he got on the ground and started treating soldiers far too young to be caught in the middle of that madness, to be fighting, dying, blown full of shrapnel, bodies spilling blood between his hands: Don't let them see your fury, don't let them see your grief. They don't need it. Show them the calm they can't find. Tell them with your voice, your steady hands, that it will be all right. "I'm sorry," he says. "Can you stand?"  
  
He gets him to the washroom, helps him off with his trousers and his pants, ignores how Sherlock's legs tremble as he climbs into the tub. John fills a cup with warm water and pours it slowly over Sherlock's flayed skin, pretends he doesn't hear his small hiss of pain as the water mixes with his blood on its way down. Slowly, gently dabs him dry with a towel, and helps him on with his clothes to go back to the room.  
  
Sherlock settles onto the bed, closes his eyes. "Can you stitch them up?"  
  
"We need to manage your pain first." He gives Sherlock pills; snaps on his gloves and begins to smooth a numbing gel over the edges of the raw cuts. Sherlock shudders once; drops his head a little until he's done. "Better?" John asks, and Sherlock nods. He gets out the antiseptic and begins to soak each violated scar in turn with the gentleness he doesn't have words for. "These won't be hard to close," he says. "They're very shallow. I don't understand what she--well."  
  
"She meant to humiliate me, John," Sherlock says, and falls silent again.  
  
It's hard to push a needle through Sherlock's broken skin, but he's a doctor and a soldier and he's learned long ago to set aside emotion while he's on duty. When he's finished, he repackages the needle for disposal, strips off the gloves and rests a hand on the back of Sherlock's head. "There, now," he says. "We'll give those a week. How do you feel?"  
  
Silence. Alarmed, he shifts around to sit beside him, look into his face and finds Sherlock staring straight ahead, unseeing, tears rolling steadily down his cheeks.  
  
"Sherlock. What is it?"  
  
"I don't know," he says. His voice sounds perfectly normal, but the tears continue spilling over. "I didn't do this when they beat me, in Serbia. And that was worse."  
  
"God," John says, and reaches out, but Sherlock tenses. He stops; takes Sherlock's hand instead, and says carefully, "They didn't hurt you in your home, in your own bed. And they weren't your friends. She was. I think maybe this was worse, Sherlock."  
  
Visible pain pulls Sherlock's eyes tight shut, his mouth down, and John says, "Sorry, I'm sorry--" and Sherlock pulls his hand out of John's and makes a fist, presses it into his chest. Moves his head from side to side helplessly.  
  
"Are you all right?" He knows he sounds frightened, can't help it now. "Did she poison you? Are you in pain? Sherlock!" because he's starting to breathe in sharp, shallow gasps; his eyes are fearful and a shudder breaks over him, but he shakes his head again violently, spreads his hands on the bed to brace himself, and suddenly John recognizes what he's seeing. It's been a very long time.  
  
"All right, it's okay," he manages; "it's all right, it's just adrenaline, it will pass. I'm here; breathe, I'm here--"  
  
("--I'm here, James, oh, God, is this because I kissed you? Did I do this to you? I'm sorry, I'm so sorry--" but James is shaking his head, _No,_ and John sinks down into the cool, damp grass beside him, casts a look toward the back of the house, wondering if this has happened before, if any of James' staff will see them and come, but the door stays closed. James' shallow panting joins the rush of the wind in the quiet through the bare limbs of the trees around them, the winter birds pipping, hidden in the dried grass at the edge of the woods, and John wraps his arms around James' shuddering body and holds on tight, rubs his arms while he retches onto the cold ground and groans aloud.  
  
"I'm here, you'll be all right, James, it's just a panic attack, it will pass. Just breathe, now--")  
  
"--breathe with me, Sherlock." He reaches out, but Sherlock shakes his head again. His whole body is shaking with the force of the attack and John thinks, he needs an anchor. He needs--And he's slowly sliding into the space between Sherlock's legs; settling down onto his chest, and Sherlock breaks into enormous, raw, shaking breaths as he curls around John--  
  
(--and at last his gasps become quiet pants and John breathes, "That's right, I'm here, James, it's okay. It's okay, you're not alone now," and cautiously lifts a hand to cup and stroke James' marred cheek. He lets out a quiet sob; drops his face into his hands--)  
  
\--and John says, "That's it, can you feel me breathing? Do it with me. I'm here, I'm not going anywhere; you're safe, you're safe now," and feels the heaving slowing down into a steady, gentle trembling as Sherlock gulps air with his cheek resting on John's hair.  
  
"Was that my fault?" John asks, after a long minute, and then he waits in the quiet--  
  
(--and James says, "No, John. No. But we can't--I can't."  
  
John drops his forehead onto the back of James' neck, just for a moment; then he pulls back, lets him go. "All right. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have--I was so glad you wanted me to visit. I wasn't thinking."  
  
James is sitting bowed and shivering, but he looks up at that. "Neither was I--John, don't you understand? That's it. I wasn't thinking. You were right there and all I could feel or think of was you, and then--and then I realized I hadn't been aware of anything at all except you, for--God knows how long. That's why--this happened." He gestures to himself with an unsteady hand. "Because I have to be alert now, John, always. There've been so many threats. With just me here it doesn't matter so much. But if it was you they harmed--" He closes his eyes for a moment. "I'd be sure someone would come when I was distracted. I could never just be with you. And that won't end. This is my life now. You see, I can't."  
  
And he wants to argue, to shout, to beg, God help him, but he can't find the words, looking at James' wrecked face--)  
  
\--until Sherlock whispers, "No," and begins to push him gently away and his heart sinks.  
  
"What's happening, Sherlock? Why won't you let me help you?"  
  
Silence. Sherlock's looking down at his hands, winding his fingers together in his lap. Finally he says, "You shouldn't."  
  
"Why?" He's pleading. He can feel Sherlock leaving, going into himself. "Is it something she said?" Sherlock's silent, and he says, "Oh, my God. Sherlock, she twists everything up to fit her twisted mind. She doesn't know me, all right? I grew up with chaos, see, and being in the army was--well, it was still madness but it was madness with some purpose. And I had definite directions, something real I could do to help. That's why it fit me. And I didn't--I--" He's never said this aloud. "I didn't love James because he was my commander, I loved him because he was kind. Because he looked out for me and he trusted me, depended on me. And you did, too." Sherlock's still not looking at him and he's not sure he can keep his voice steady much longer. "She was right, okay, I am bloody well terrified by this, Sherlock, but it's not because I don't want your love, it's because I never thought I'd get it." Sherlock scoffs at that, looks up at last, and John wants to weep at the grief in his eyes. "Listen," he says, "You won't lose me because you're different now, Sherlock; it's all that made me brave enough to let you love me back. We--we're ready now for this, for us, and she can't take _you_ from me, too!"  
  
His voice has gone high and he stops; clenches his hands. It's quiet. "Lie down," he says, because Sherlock's still trembling, and Sherlock does it; curls up on his side with his back to John, a hand over his eyes. John waits in the silence for something, anything.  
  
"Please," he says, finally; sees Sherlock's hand twitch on his face.  
  
"It's not what she said about you," he says. He sounds almost normal. "I know you, John. I know you want me, but that's it, John, you shouldn't. Not me."  
  
"What the bloody hell does that mean?" He's so tired.  
  
"Didn't you listen?" Sherlock gives a little laugh. "She said it. I'm just like her. I didn't take care of you. I lied and I left you and I thought everything would be just the same, and when I realized--John, when I understood what I had done--"  
  
"I forgave you. Sherlock, don't you remember?"  
  
"You shouldn't have. For a while I let myself--you made me believe I might be able--" He stops, sounding near tears, but when he speaks again, his voice is steady and expressionless. "John, people like me hurt people. We don't get to love people like you."


	20. Chapter 20

"Oh," he breathes, and straightens; feels the anger and fear drain away. He gets off the bed to stand beside Sherlock. "All right. That's wrong, entirely wrong, but I understand, now." He rests a hand on Sherlock's hair, sees him take in the touch and blink back tears. "So here's what'll happen next. You'll rest--and that's an order--while I go make tea. Then I'll bring it to you, here in bed. And we'll talk."  
  
Silence. At last Sherlock nods. John pulls up the thick knitted blanket on the foot of the bed, drapes it over Sherlock. Then he goes out, grateful for his good shoes as he steps over the shards of window glass still scattered across the carpet; makes his way into the thankfully undisturbed kitchen to fill the kettle.  
  
When he comes back in to the room with a steaming mug, perfectly sweetened, Sherlock hasn't moved. He brushes a palm over the mess of soft, dark curls on the pillow. "Made you a cuppa."  
  
Sherlock pushes himself up slowly to sit, wincing. Cradles the offered mug in his hands. John crawls over the bed to switch on the second lamp; leans back against the headboard, closes his eyes. The sounds of evening traffic come clearly through the broken window. He can hear a bird peeping to itself, nesting under the eave.  
  
Finally he says, “So. Mary was all wrong about me. Explain, please–-why would she be right about you, then?”  
  
When Sherlock speaks his voice is low and uncertain. “I did–-I did use you badly. That’s why I lost you. I didn’t take enough care of you. I didn’t think often enough of how you’d feel.”  
  
“So why did I come back to you? I’m no masochist.” John looks over at Sherlock’s tired face, his downcast eyes, and aches for him.  
  
“Because she hit you. You needed someplace safe to go, and I offered.”

"Was I wrong to come? Am I not safe here?" He's keeping his tone gentle to offset the force of what he has to say. Emotion flickers in Sherlock's face. "All right, then. Don't answer that. I know I am. Back to when you and Mycroft made the fake-suicide plan. Why'd you lie to me, leave me behind? Did you want to hurt me?"  
  
"No!" He sounds stunned.  
  
"Of course not. Did you do it to prove to me that you could? That I didn't have a right to keep you?"  
  
"No. John--"  
  
"Did you lie to me to protect yourself?"  
  
"No--"  
  
"No, you meant to protect _me,_ didn't you? Did you enjoy lying to me?"  
  
"I hated it." The words are barely audible.  
  
"I know. And when you came back and found I loved someone else, did you try to scare her off, or make me hate her? Did you want to spoil it for us?"  
  
"I didn't--John, I wouldn't--" Sherlock's pleading, and John reaches out a hand and touches his cheek, gently; sees him shiver.  
  
"Exactly. Listen to me, now. I chose her, and you let me, because _you_ see my love as mine, to give to whoever I choose. _She_ saw my love as hers, only hers. She told you she'd do anything to keep me--lie to me, kill you. She never wanted me free. You do." He reaches carefully across to take Sherlock's hand, strokes it with his thumb.  
  
"You did some things that weren't on. I expect never to be drugged again. And I won't be kept in the dark about villains, or lied to about bombs, or left out of plans." He smiles a little; squeezes the hand he holds, and Sherlock's fingers wind through his and hold tight. "You've gotten things wrong, but you've never tried to own me. You let me tell you the truth as I saw it. Let me be myself, not an echo of you. When you met me, I was so fucked up I didn't know who I was any more, but you did. You trusted me, wanted me with you. And you were so beautiful." He's embarrassing himself, but this needs to be said.

"I adored you. I still do. I'm not Victor, Sherlock. I know the best and the worst of you, and I want you. That won't change. Even if you won't let yourself love me back anymore."  
  
"John." It's barely a sound.  
  
"But I think you will."  
  
_"John,"_ Sherlock says again, deep and shaking, and John risks a look at him, and blinks. Sherlock's alight. His eyes meet John's shamelessly, and the wash of tenderness and hope that colors them is almost too much to look at, it's so bright.  
  
"Come here, please," John says, when he can find his voice; holds out his arms in invitation, and Sherlock comes to him.

"I love you," he says, settled in John's arms. John wraps them low around him, careful of his hurts. "I love you," fiercely, and John smiles into the quiet room, slides down into the pillows under Sherlock's warm weight.

"I know."


	21. Chapter 21

He's always liked a good hot breakfast after a near-death experience.

He and Harry had learned to cook by necessity when they were small. There's a calm inherent in the familiar movements, cutting up the onions and garlic with small strokes, pouring the bowl of eggs out slowly onto the griddle. He's just reached the dear-God-that-smells-incredible stage of frying his omelette when Sherlock walks in in his pajama bottoms, silkily robed, but shirtless. He'd slept without one because of his stitches. He stands in the door, looking at John.

"Well, hello," John says. God, but he's lovely. "How are you feeling?"

"Better." Sherlock's voice is gravelly with sleep.

"Coffee?"

"Not yet." He steps into the room, sits down at the table, and goes on staring. John begins to feel a bit awkward; looks down at his own ordinary vest and plaid pajama bottoms--nothing strange there; scrubs a hand through his hair in case it's sticking up. Sherlock's eyes follow the motion. John pulls the omelette off the heat, switches off the burner and faces him. Sherlock's gaze doesn't waver. As stands and lets himself be looked at, John's embarrassment fades, and something stronger rushes through him.

Until just now, he had thought he already knew what Sherlock wholly in love looked like, Sherlock unafraid. He hadn't seen half of it.

"You believe me now," he says. "I can tell."

"What?"

"You believe me. That I love you and I'm not going to leave you."

The corner of Sherlock's mouth turns up shyly. John rubs a hand over his face, smiles back, suddenly stunned by him, tanglehaired and tender-eyed, looking at him like that. He feels like he's blushing. He's probably blushing, because now Sherlock's ears have gone pink and his smile is growing.

"What?" John says, finally.

"You're beautiful," Sherlock answers, very quietly. His smile trembles for a moment.

 _"God,"_ says John, and buries his face in his hands; and in the next moment Sherlock's up and holding him tight, stroking his hair, and then his face is in John's shoulder, in the soft curve of his neck; and he's kissing it, slow, tender kisses that flood him with emotion, making it hard to breathe. "Sherlock," he whispers, through the tightness in his throat, and Sherlock smiles into his skin. His hand finds the top of John's vest and pushes it aside; and his fingers start to move over John's scar, lightly, reverently. Sherlock pulls back a little and his eyes flicker over it. He runs the palm of his hand around John's shoulder to cup the rest of it, the rippled skin on his back where the bullet had torn through. John blows out a slow breath at the feeling.

"Thank you for living," Sherlock says, almost inaudibly.

"Anytime," John whispers. Laughs a little, reaches up to trace the edge of Sherlock's ear. Runs his fingers down over Sherlock's cheek. He hadn't known how it would feel to be the center of so much concentrated certainty. He cups Sherlock's face in his hands and raises his mouth, offering it to him.

He's never been kissed like this, not even at the height of their joy that first night. It's almost too much, his soft mouth and their shared breath and warm hands moving down each other's arms to feel how close, how sure they are. Sherlock whispers, "John," and no one's ever meant so much by just his name.

"My Sherlock," he says, and smiles at the low laugh of happiness the statement surprises from him--stops to touch a finger to Sherlock's scar, the pale little hollow over his heart, to feel the life thrumming through him. "I'm so glad we lived," he says, and feels a prickle of terror. It's incredible, impossible to think now that anything could have happened before they'd gotten this far.

"We lived," he says again, and kisses him more.

 

Long after, Sherlock's phone vibrates on the table in the sitting room where they're sitting tangled on the sofa, half-asleep, and John feels Sherlock tense, hears him murmur, "We ought to--" and feels he's coming back to earth from a very long way off. He sits back to let Sherlock at it; sighs.

Sherlock looks up from the text with worry in his eyes. "They've found her."

"Alive?"

"Yes."

"Her kidnappers?"

"No trace. She's escaped, or eliminated them. It's a last stand. She won't let anyone near. She's trying to get killed, John. They want you to come." Sherlock studies his face, takes his hand. "They think if you talk to her she might give in."

He looks into Sherlock's steady eyes, and thinks, She shot Sherlock. Let her die.

And then he thinks, She knows who Moriarty is. We have to know.

"All right." He's no coward. "I'll go."

 

Of course she doesn't listen to him.

When he stumbles back into 221, he's just sorry he ever met her. He's taken aback by the grief that rises in his throat when Sherlock leans over him with a cup of tea and a gentle hand on his neck. Mary died weeks ago, he thinks. Why feel it now? Weeks back, my wife turned into Rachel Alstadt's castoff ghost.

Once the tears start, he can't stop. He weeps shamelessly, Sherlock's hand resting firmly on his neck, grounding him, until a light wet drop falls into his hair, then another, and he's stunned into stillness by the realization that Sherlock's crying, too. He turns to see him. Under his surprised look Sherlock hides his face, murmurs, "John," then flees the room. He has no idea what to do.

When the bedroom door closes he feels the quiet in the flat settle over him, making it hard to breathe. Once again he's lost things that never were his. He never had a child, a wife, only the idea of them. How can he mourn that?

He remembers another speechless grief for something he'd never had, love unacknowledged, a future without a name. Trying to move on after Sherlock, without any way to explain what that meant. Then he thinks of Sherlock this morning, alive, alight with happiness, whispering his name, fingers on his old scar. Loving him. He stands; takes the mug Sherlock had brought him back into to the kitchen and rinses it; runs a hand over the old dishtowel he'd dropped, forgotten, on the back of the chair when Sherlock had kissed him. "Sherlock," he says aloud. He goes to the door of the bedroom, feeling like an intruder. But when he asks, "Can I come in?" the door opens immediately. Sherlock looks at him with tears in his eyes and John thinks, He's grieving her for me.

"I know you loved her," Sherlock says. "I thought, I really thought we could get her back, convince her--"

"God, no!" He wouldn't bring her back. "No, Sherlock, that's over. She's gone. She never was here. But we're here, we're here now, I just want this, I just--" and he's choking on the words, but he can see the moment Sherlock understands; he straightens, his whole self opening wide. When John goes to him, he pulls him in with no hesitation, wraps him round in a hold so sure that John almost laughs.

Maybe they are invincible, after all. Here they are, after everything, together.  
  
Sherlock sighs, and his arms tighten around John, and then a kiss is pressed quietly into the top of his head.  
  
"Was that right?" he asks, low, and John nods. He can't speak, but he doesn't need to now.

He's home.

_________________________ 

_Hello, Sherlock. I hear you cut short the meeting I arranged for you with Mary. That was rather rude. Now we've unfinished business. --M._

_I understood you and she and Janine had all gotten quite close. I'd thought you'd prefer to die at home, among friends. Now I'll have to see to you myself. And I'm so busy these days!--M._

_I can rearrange my schedule a bit, though, for the famous Sherlock Holmes. I've heard such a lot about you, my dear. --M._

 

_Name your time and place, but don't ask to meet me alone. If you know anything about me, you know John Watson and I will be together. --SH_


End file.
